“I will build myself again” is a mixed media expression of the emotional impulses behind a self-reinvention after being laid off. In the upper left corner is a sheet of paper found behind the Anaheim Convention Center, stamped by the wheels of a delivery vehicle to a large convention where I worked security several years ago. On the right in bright pink is packaging for a promotional pen from my last job. The dark streak down the center represents emotional pain. Near the beginning of being laid off, an artist friend died, and then my husband's uncle passed away unexpectedly. The metallic gold spray paint, the first layer of the piece, represents ambition and buoyant optimism. The pink represents my passion. The word "family" is seen through a traditional stencil. The beautiful blue color at the bottom is a result of experimentation. Several small multi-colored bricks were painted in oil first at the bottom of the page, then I decided to smear over them with white acrylic and it turned into the most beautiful grey blue of a cold winter ocean. There are vines, like sea kelp, arising from the floor of the painting where the bricks once stood, with emojis and words of encouragement. I learned to scuba dive right after I was laid off. Among the ambition, optimism, pain, and desire for family, in a sea of chaos, I resolve to build myself again.

"Orbs"

Watercolor and salt on paper

"Thank you very much for your job application. Mr. Jones would like to meet you personally and interview you for placement with our company," says a vintage board game piece from a 50s card game. A figure sits with head in hands, frustrated, that she has to "get a real job," after years of soul-searching and starting over. What started as painting from a thrift store depicting a distracted/bored mother feeding a baby, was covered in white interior paint. All I've ever known I've wanted to be is a mother, so this painting angered me that she wasn't appreciating her duty. I then painted a few simple flowers on the canvas in bold colors. They were beautiful and it could have been complete. However, "Too simple!" I declared, and painted over them. And then again, and again, and again. I began to write the mantra, "More me than me," a phrase I heard Ninja of South African rap group Die Antwoord say on a documentary. He said that he felt like the persona "Ninja" that he created was "more me than me" when he tried him on. So I felt that perhaps I too needed a larger-than-life persona. But it turns out I more urgently needed money & a job, to my utter frustration.

A collage of teaser credit cards I received in the mail and collected after my bankruptcy was formed into the lower United States, and hangs ominously over a traditional Chinese couple, representing world powers. I had taken a foreign currency trading bootcamp in which I learned things like how after the U.S./global recession of 2008, China rerouted more of its shipping exports toward Europe. The painting is an antique, scavenged from a trash pile outside a hoarder's home in San Francisco after the home caught fire, destroying lots of antiques and killing the inhabitants. The damage to the painting and the frame hint at catastrophes of other sorts, possible water or fire damage, alluding to climate change...yet another catastrophe on the horizon.

The first and only time I got a chance to draw her live portrait, in 2014, before she suddenly died in October. My best friend for 10 years. Grateful. 

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