(Is lushfully even a word? I am getting that little red squiggle under it?!)
This piece began with thoughts about beauty, nourishment, and what we are taught to value. At the centre is a leg bone with visible veins running through it, an image of structure, support, and the hidden systems that keep us alive. Bones hold memory. They hold weight. They quietly reflect the conditions we live through.
I found myself thinking about nourishment while making this work, both physical and emotional. (How undernourishment paid into my affliction). In times of malnourishment, bones become more fragile. Density decreases. (Like many of my plates) The internal structure weakens long before the damage is visible from the outside. I started wondering if the same thing happens psychologically. What thoughts are we feeding ourselves? What belief systems are we building our inner worlds from? (what grows?) If our thoughts become the building blocks of who we are, what materials are we using to construct the self? Is reconstruction possible?
The Victorian woman included in the piece comes from a hair piece advertisement, a small glimpse into historical beauty standards and the industries built around them. Lush hair has long been associated with vitality, femininity, desirability, and health. Beauty becomes something curated and sold back to us, often through insecurity. There is something unsettling to me about how persistent those systems are, how profit continues to grow from convincing people they are lacking. (Check out this piece on self-love under capitalism for more musings).
At the same time, this piece resists complete cynicism. The lush green background keeps pulling me back toward nature. Toward growth. Toward the reminder that living things thrive in all sorts of conditions. Even delicate leaves, which can tear so easily, continue reaching outward. There is resilience in that softness.
I kept returning to the word lush while making this piece. Lushness as abundance. Lushness as vitality. Lushness as something sensory and alive. Healing lushfully, to me, feels less like achieving perfection and more like choosing to grow anyway — despite fragility, despite conditioning, despite the systems that taught us to disconnect from ourselves.