WOMEN RISING is an exhibition that will take place at 780 Valencia Street in San Francisco, CA and will open to the public March 12, 2022. The INSIDE/OUTSIDE Project, a SF based collaboration between the Drawing Room and Curated State, invites SF Bay area based women artists, including cis, trans, and female-identifying artists, to submit a piece or a body of work for consideration in this exhibition.

“We are looking for works specifically created since 2020 and hope to represent how the impacts of the past 2 years have affected artists in what they create and how their work ties to our current state of the world. We are asking artists how COVID, the recent climate crisis and the many socio-political issues happening in these most modern and recent times are affecting women artists as makers, thinkers and activists.”

I submitted a few pieces that spoke to the call, but only one piece was invited. The Day the Bay Was Orange, mixed media painting on canvas. I never added this painting to my inventory because I’m still not sure how I feel about it. It was such an unsettling day and I try to share positive, happy paintings. This painting is really personal, dare I say it’s a self portrait of emotional digestion. It’s full of dirty sketches, grit, sarcasm, fear and that ominous orange, yet I felt the need to give it a glossy finish? Sort of putting lipstick on a pig idea.

I recall opening the shades that morning to the most bizarre orange sky. It shook me. I ran upstairs in tears and had my daughter look out the window. Panic bolted down my spine and hid in my tummy. I felt sick. I cried and made jokes about the end of the world. We were in the middle of a quarantine and the only place I could safely escape was outside. Now that was corrupted. I was really angry and felt like I was living in the “Twilight Zone”. Every time I look at that painting I feel unsettled and uncomfortable. From the herringbone pattern that looks more to me like Atari’s space invader graphics… to money questions asked to myself and my community…to a mama bear sketched out of a brown lunch bag. It’s a visual non sequitur.

The Day the Bay Was Orange - Detail shot

This piece received a lot of attention during open studios. I was surprised. Many people connected with it. I think it’s the honesty and rawness. That is why I paint. To process my feelings, document history in real time, and to connect with my community.

We all struggled that day. Heck, life is a struggle everyday. While this piece isn’t one of my favorites, I will be making her available online after the exhibition.

Detail shot - The Day the Bay Was Orange

Now that you’ve had a little taste of what piece got into the show. Next week I’ll post about the piece I thought would have been invited to this exhibition. I can’t wait to see the show and encourage everyone to join us for the opening reception, March 12th, 4-9pm. The Drawing Room SF

Covid Crisis: The day I became Chicken Little