I just started making them one day. I had saved the burlap from my college thesis installation in 2011, knowing I would eventually want to repurpose the material. Burlap is often used as protective packing.  It’s breathable while still having structure. Easy to compact or expand. The weave is strong. The smell is earthy because it’s made from natural fibers like jute or hemp. Some of the pieces were still sewn together from that previous work and while I sat on my bedroom floor playing and shape shifting, I noticed the folds and how readily these fragments took vaginal shape. I had already been working with threads and sewing details in my painting so I began sewing and embellishing these vulvae.  From 2016-2019 I have made ten of these burlap vulvae and possibly have a few others in the works. When I started these pieces, as natural as they were to make, at the same time they felt a bit silly and even ugly to me at moments. I found though, from the start of this project in 2016, to 2019 when I first tried writing about it, to now 2022 and actually sharing it, my views on the work have drastically evolved. As I was growing this series of an object based on the body, in parallel I was thinking a lot about my own body. Something I was making was transforming my thoughts on my body, and I had a physical and emotional response to the work I was creating. There are inevitably connections from my own personal experience to a collective female experience.  One thought I do remember having in the beginning, was that my body is a tool. A tool to get me from point A to point B, a tool to create work, to create life. I am in charge of taking care of this tool. This vessel I live in, is my child and I realized I had been taking care of my body for the pleasure of others instead of for myself. I wrapped my arms around my body and held tightly. I’ve found that without my acknowledgment that I had been following a course of trading my body for acceptance, for connection, for security, for education, for material goods, for even “love”. It was a way for me to BEGIN the process of understanding, admitting, and accepting that, I had been paying for my entire life with my body. Since the beginning of time, women have been paying for their lives with their bodies.  Our bodies, these heavily desired objects, giving us the upper hand, our strength. As a child, I knew nothing of my body and I knew nothing of money. It was only when someone attempted to commodify my body that I learned this kind of exchange. And now even years later, I continue retraining my mind from thinking a man will be the one to help me get where I am intending to go, to instead knowing and believing I am enough and can carry myself there on my own. I am still unraveling my own agency daily. There is no timeline, and nothing is binding or consistent. My intellectual property is as valuable as my body and the two are not interchangeable with any other or exchangeable for just anything.  When looking at this collection as a whole, I see a community. I see their similarities but am drawn to their individual embellishments that make them unique. They’re so organic to me that they almost feel alive. I’m mesmerized how these pieces come together. The same way our bodies come together. I see their durability and resilience in their medium and a metaphor for how I see women on a whole, their varied and vibrant colored stitches, make my eye trace the lines over and over again.  2022/07/02