"22 Pluck" no.13
WOMENinSTRENGTHseries
My series is based on womens strengths and are a monument honoring their journey.
Embedded Files
"22 Pluck"
My series is based on womens strengths and are a monument honoring their journey.
24x36"" ( no. 4 in series)
Medium: Charcoal and Ink-Wash on Multi-Layered Rice Paper, Mounted on Canvas
Artist'sStatement: the Spirit of Strength found in one's ansestry.
After hours of searching for a face that truly spoke to me, I found this portrait by Dorothea Lange. What struck me immediately was that her spirit was the one asset the drought couldn’t touch, it captured the absolute essence of the Great Depression. The bank could repossess her farm, the dust could ruin her family's crops, and the squatters' camp could strip away every basic comfort, but her inner strength remained sovereign territory. Surrendering her internal drive was the only true defeat, and she simply refused to grant anyone that victory.
There is an incredible, dignified defiance in her stillness. She sat in that tent not as a victim of her circumstances, but as an unbreakable anchor for her family. The deep lines on her face tell the story of every obstacle she survived, a quiet proof that hardship can be endured. Facing her own trials alongside those of her twenty-two grandchildren stripped away everything unnecessary to reveal a core of pure grit. She undoubtedly drew from a deep reservoir of ancestral strength, holding fast to an inner resilience that poverty and displacement could never touch. At the core of human dignity is that internal drive; to lose it is to lose oneself, and in the end, oneself is often all one has left.
Painting her gave me the strength to reflect on my own family. What did my ancestors' struggles teach me, and what am I meant to pass down? It is the resolve to navigate life’s hardships built on the foundations the past women of my familuy laid within me. Painting her allowed me to process that legacy so I can pass it down to my daughters and granddaughters, ensuring they know they have everything it takes to stand strong, serving as another link in an unbroken chain of resilient women.
Reference: https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2017763213/
About the Photograph
In this striking portrait by Great Depression photographer Dorothea Lange, an 80-year-old grandmother and migrant from Oklahoma living in a Bakersfield, California camp shares a timeless lesson on resilience: "If you lose your pluck you lose the most there is in you , all you've got to live with." In 1930s vernacular, pluck meant fierce courage, grit, and unwavering fortitude. Having lost her home, farm, and financial security to the Dust Bowl, she reminds us that while circumstances can take away everything external, our inner spirit and resolve are the one thing no hardship can steal unless we give it away.
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