Soul Food Gallery

SURVIVOR

awarded for enduring the living reincarnations life asks of us

Survivor’s Message:

This piece is currently on its third life this life.

Thus, the name Survivor, which it chose itself.

In its first life, it was named Beauty Queen to reflect what I learned participating in pageants as a teenager combined with the experience of having a serious breast cancer scare in my early twenties.

At 23, all the imaging results showed I had about a month to live. But, after a large tumor was removed from my breast, and tested and retested several times, it was miraculously benign.

I don’t know why I got so lucky. But, the experience left a mark on me. 

I initially made Beauty Queen to represent the authentic beauty of the women who endure breast cancer with an additional nod to the kind of women who should actually be wearing crowns.  

As a teenager, I participated in pageants like a gifted high school quarterback trying to get a scholarship as an express ticket out of their small town life experience.

At the time, I also believed my body and what I looked like were the best things I had going for me and banked on where that could take me. 

Growing through these misunderstandings of myself and my options was vital.

And pageants were good for me in ways you’d not expect. 

They actually taught me I don’t need rhinestones or other people’s authorization to make a difference in this world.

I learned “the judges” were not the be-all-end-all verdict on whether or not I was a winner or worthy to be seen.

They were just a few people. And this was their opinion. 

Today, they liked blue. Awesome. Blue is a great color, but orange and purple are pretty nice, too. Tomorrow, it could be pink.

As I grew through this era of me, I stopped trying to prepare answers and myself in a way that sounded and looked good to “the judges”.

I actually went within myself and brought out what I really had to say.  

And then I finally won one the summer before I’d be the first woman in my family to go away to college and earn a degree. And behind that curtain, these knowings only deepened and solidified within me. 

And then I didn’t give a fuck about the judges, which was an odd position to be in as a reigning queen.

Beauty Queen first emerged in my consciousness when we were visiting a summer camp for children who had cancer. 

And I remember this little boy asking if he could wear my crown. So, of course, I let him wear it and he was just delighted.

And then before we were about to leave, he asked if he could keep it. 

And of course, I wanted to say yes, as I knew he deserved it way more than me. 

And then I regrettably didn’t give it to him because I remembered I wasn’t allowed to do that.

It was that mixed with the feeling like I kind of wanted to keep it for nostalgia or to give to my daughter someday. 

Recently, I found it broken in a bin in my basement and I promptly recycled it. Because based on what it represents, it’s nothing I want to give my daughter.

At the time, the little boy and his mother were gracious and understood.

But, as we pulled away, I wanted to scream, 

“Turn around...We have to go back! I’ve changed my mind!”

But, at eighteen years old, I did not have the self-esteem and backbone to say this and stand up to the pageant director.

So, I sat there disgusted with myself and said nothing. 

I am not this woman today. 

Who I am today knows how to yell ‘Turn around!’ and do what needs to be done to make things right. 

This whole experience haunted and shaped me and I knew someday I’d use it for good. Creating Beauty Queen was a way I saw to do that.

And at college that fall, my long locks were gone and I took off my make-up most days.

In the art’s second life, it had become Crown of Courage when I reinvented it after it took a nose dive off a gallery wall in early 2009. 

It was too important to me to just leave there on the floor in pieces. And I hadn’t yet found the woman or foundation it belonged to, so I had to preserve it until I met her or them.

And since we are talking about reinvention and courage, and not leaving things in pieces on the floor because I realized they were too important to me…

I should also mention that I used to allow myself to be in long-term relationships with some men who were verbally, emotionally and/or sexually abusive.

Who they were in front of others was most times not who they were behind closed doors.

I used to call that love and just how relationships are.

Now, I would never call that love.

I’d call that learning.

I’d call that trauma.

I’d call that life content to alchemize through art.

I’d call that unacceptable behavior I wouldn’t tolerate now for two minutes.

But, sadly, I remember in that era of me, I used to hope he would punch me in the face so people would believe me. I used to think I needed people to believe me before the pain was real enough to leave or get support or even mention it.

I was able to change my circumstances when I hit the tipping point where my voice was the one I actually believed in and listened to the most.

After a massive amount of soul work and personal transformation, I grew through to my next era and embraced a whole new level of “fuck the judges”.

And left.

Left and ended a cycle that started at 14 years old and was over at 30.

And at 31, I met the love of my life. And there isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t know what I have.

We actually both know what we have and treat each other like gold and we have for thirteen years now.

You want to know the secret?

Healthy relationships aren’t hard.

They flow; they're fun.

Yes, there is maintenance and life will happen, but life is actually easier because of the togetherness.

He and I have navigated hard things together, but being together is not hard.

I didn’t know that and now I do. With a grateful and whole heart, I do.

Fast forward to 2012 when I was immersed in a creative winter and I decided to donate Crown of Courage to a woman who inspired me with her life story.

She had survived breast cancer, not once, but twice. 

Yep, Crown of Courage was for her. She loved it and hung it proudly in her home. 

And then, in the fall of 2017, I got an email from her telling me she needed to downsize her life considerably and unfortunately no longer had the wall space. She had to sell almost all of her other art and knew this piece should not be sold, but given back to me. She understood what it was and believed there was a next chapter for it. 

I surely gave it to the right woman. 

And it came to my door wearing an actual medal.

I kid you not, I unwrapped the piece then known as Crown of Courage to find an actual medal of hers hanging by pink ribbon with the words SURVIVOR written in all caps.

She had no idea what work I was creating next. She said the medal had always been hanging on the piece and she simply forgot to take it off when she wrapped it.

You can imagine the chills that went through my being as I saw and heard this. 

This medal was the ultimate confirmation from The Universe that I was doing my job on the planet and it graciously sent this tangible token my way, as I was about to cross the finish line of the opening launch of Soul Food Gallery in Sedona in 2018.

Promptly, I started creating a small scale rendition of the original to fit nicely in her new life as a way to give back the medal she’d clearly earned.

I knew instantly that this piece was going to have yet another life and it told me its name on arrival: Survivor.

In its third life, this unexpected Soul Success Medal for Humanity would be called Survivor.

Previously, it had exclusively honored women and now it had expanded to honor all people of any gender identity and expression who survive and transform in all the glorious and gritty ways they do.

It honors all who allow life to rearrange and rebuild them as appropriate for their next chapter.

You see WE are about different things at different times and this is fine.

Retrospect teaches us that the catalyst for rebirth may be glorious or devastating, but its timing is impeccable.

And when life begins to rearrange and redirect you so often, you no longer rely so much on retrospect. 

As inconvenient as this might be to our plans, our schedules and our fixed ideas about ourselves, we hold our heads high and walk directly to greet that fire and step into that next unknown chapter of ourselves.

We may even bring a stick to roast marshmallows.

We pull up a chair and embrace a part of us that’s been there the whole time, just waiting for fuel and air. And we embrace it and move forward.

If you have earned or are earning this Soul Success Medal for Humanity, please place your hand on your heart and claim it for yourself.

The Soul Success Medals for Humanity at Soul Food Gallery