BOXED IN II
Pastel, graphite, with Irish linen thread on paper
10 x 15 unframed |25.5 x 20.5 framed

This series emerged as I prepared to go to China in 2018 to facilitate a program on leadership to college students for the World Academy for the Future of Women. While there, I would also facilitate art experiences rural villagers for a WAFW program called give Voice to Women through the Arts, funded by a US State Department grant.
While making this piece, I was thinking about my perceptions of the Chinese culture and communism. I was curious about how much autonomy people have living in a communist country. How big is the box of their lives? How boxed in do they feel?

We all have the boxes of our lives, whether they are self-imposed, or government enforced, or formed by some other outside force. How we navigate, climb out or into the next box or tether to another, separates and unites us.