The first month of this project was genuinely a life saving one. I was just beginning to lift my head up from a period of suicidal ideation. I was struggling not mentally, but physically, to find my ‘yes’ for life. I couldn’t hold a pencil without being in excruciating pain. I spent my days in bed, in silence, unable to even listen to or watch something because of the pain.

Life felt unimaginably grim. How could I possibly be a single parent to a high energy 2.5 year old? How was I ever going to be able to financially provide for my child and I? How was I going to be able to manage the realities of being an adult—cleaning, shopping, taxes, laundry?

I couldn’t make a single piece of art in any of my media to help me regulate in the face of all that was before me. Making art has always been my way to survive the horrific and violent seasons of my life, and I was determined to figure out a way.

What you can’t see in this first shoot is the immense pain I was in, the pain meds I had to take just to be able to get out of bed and get dressed, and the collapse that followed this hour of creating.

These are images of me fighting for my life. This is how I reminded myself, in spite of my current situation, I’m Still Here.