Rebuilding – ORIGINAL Cut Paper Collage

This image shows a pregnant woman standing on a balcony, looking over a cityscape of rubble and destruction. Illustrated here are our current tumultuous times, including the chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic, war in the Ukraine, human rights abuses in Afghanistan, & sociopolitical oppression in other places around the world. Here in the U.S. we also face many challenges and inequities that cause social chaos and widespread damage.

There’s no escaping hardship, and this artwork points to what I believe is a somewhat universal feeling of our times. The pregnant mother holds her belly, the bird in the sky carries a morsel back to her nest to feed her babies, and the workers sort through the rubble of a collapsed building in search of survivors. A handwritten sign reads “We NEED Food.” In the distance, the city skyscrapers stand tall, reminding us that the corporate powers are succeeding as the everyday people suffer.

In a personal way, the pregnant mother symbolizes me back in 2015. I was pregnant when my teaching and activism leadership career came to an abrupt end over a manufactured media frenzy. Like this mother looks out over the destruction, I surveyed that devastation and what looked like an impossible situation to rebuild – but I HAD to try, because I had this new life growing inside me and my older two sons and my sister depending on me. Seven years later, I’m still rebuilding. The work is slow, but we have to find those reasons for hope and that inspiration to continue to find a way, to never give up. The momma bird and pregnant mother as well as the scrawled sign in the bottom right corner “we need food” are symbols of hope – hope that it is not yet over. Hope for a brighter chapter in life. Hope for the page to turn, and hope that the next generation will thrive and find peace.