Original - Pose

2019

9” x 12” 

Medium: acrylic paint, acrylic pen, watercolor, micron pen    

This piece of peace is in honor of real life heroines like Miss Major, Marsha P. Johnson, Deedee Chamblee,  Bamby Salcedo, Stefanie Rivera, and Sylvia Rivera. It was inspired by a black dangly earring worn by Elektra Abundance-Evangelista (Dominique Jackson) on POSE. The earrings were  brilliant obsidian sphere earrings encased in an art deco gold dewdrop. I took the very basic outline of that earring and created this piece.   

It began as a protective love meditation on Black women of trans experience. Black trans women experience high levels of violence and homicide year after year in the U.S. Little is done about it. 

I have witnessed and lived some of the negative life impacts of discrimination based on - isms and -obias like transphobia and racism. It can feel almost impossible to live, let alone thrive. I have also seen these negative life impacts play out as a former attorney for the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, and former Human Rights Investigator at the Southern Center for Human Rights.  

This is a peace uplifting the beauty, resilience, brilliance, softness, power, and fortitude of the living. It is a black futures piece conjuring the light that would radiate if my sisters were able to move in a world where the burden of hatred was removed entirely. It is also a peace honoring the memory of the dead.