It's How The Light Gets In (Self Portrait at 53), 2019

I wrote the piece below in September 2019, partly because I was grappling with a very real loss of self, or the self as I had known her for so many years. The paint itself became a way to find and give birth to the wholeness of the woman I was becoming. With each stroke of the brush I painted myself into life; it was remarkably empowering to situate myself in such vulnerability and through the journey of discovery it also became a celebration of my ageing body, which for the first time in 52 years I viewed with deep compassion and respect; self love hard won

2019
As I struggled through the vicissitudes of 2019 (so far), the poignancy of the philosophy implied by the Japanese art of 'kintsugi' encouraged me to begin the process of reframing how I felt about the broken parts of my being. How I could process, from a different perspective, the pain, trauma, grief, loss and failures that weave through the tapestry of my life. I realised all the darkness held the potential to be light, but only if I chose to search for it. At times the light was not easy to find, sometimes layering something good over hurts that have been nurtured for a lifetime, meant I had to give up a piece of my identity, the part that I defined by what I had lost, given away or was taken from me. But honestly, when I examined carefully each piece of darkness, sat with it, held it gently and with compassion, I always found an ember of light, a tiny golden glow. It is my very brokenness, my flaws, my imperfections that make me unique and beautiful, and you know, we are all beings of light and beauty. We all have the potential to be an alchemist, to render gold from even the basest of ingredients.
Leonard Cohen was not wrong when he wrote;
'Forget your perfect offering 

There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in'
But I think it's also how the light gets out ……. .