"This week, in preparation for this evening, I had an energy healing that was an incredibly transformative experience that cracked my soul wide open in a way I couldn’t have expected. Immediately following this experience, I finally felt it was the time to tune in and channel what I want to share with you this evening. It was

written while embracing a completely open heart space and is much more vulnerable than I anticipated, making this utterly terrifying, but it wouldn’t feel right any other way.

I want to share that the road to getting here to this very evening has been incredibly difficult for me and that the journey I’m about to share has been the inspiration behind this body of work. 

I’ve dreamt of sharing my work in a solo exhibition for as long as I’ve been creating art, so it was shocking to me when presented with this opportunity how I experienced a deep creative block for the first time. I desperately wanted to sit and create, to feel and let flow, but nothing was coming to me as easily as it had for the last 8 years of creating intentional art.

You see, I wanted to delve into some difficult challenges I’ve experienced and heal them through creating art for this exhibition, but I didn’t want to feel the feelings. I thought I could reclaim myself, without claiming every part of myself. The light as well as the dark.

It wasn’t until I met with Isaac for the first time to hear the music he’d been creating for this show that I was able to turn inward and tap into emotions I’ve been allowing to stay tucked away in the darkest, safest parts of myself. Funny how the dam I built to keep my emotions at bay was also the dam blocking my deepest creative expression. But Isaac’s music helped open the gates just enough to start creating a flow of art once again with just a month and a half until the show. 

Music, especially live music, has always touched the deepest parts of my being. But it wasn’t just Isaac’s music that helped prepare me for tonight, it was also the synchronistic path of dealing with feelings like we could possibly belong sharing our art here at all.

The unrealistically high standards we set for ourselves that seem to never be obtainable. The pain and the shame the desire to achieve perfection within self brings us. How our desire to hone our crafts brings great fulfillment, yet we still feel as if we’re imposters and do not belong claiming our gifts.

And in this first evening with Isaac and his creation I knew it would be really special to have my art bathed in their music. Because somehow we ended up on the same journey to claiming ourselves through the process of preparing for this night. A process of creating despite battling intrusive thoughts of not being good enough. Which has led us here this evening where we now can both confidently say that we are exactly where we need to be. 

I left Isaacs house that first evening and felt my heart opening, feeling more emotionally awake than I had for quite some time. 

You see, I’d been content with disassociating from self for the last few years because life had become too much. The feelings were too big. 

Do you know what a Saturn return is? Your Saturn Return is a period of time when you are being maneuvered to clear your karmic path so that you can be placed back in the right direction for your life. Which can be really intense as it affects the next 20 or 30 years of your life.

Well i just exited my Saturn Return this Spring, and let me tell you, it was a bitch. Or so I thought while in the midst of it. Anything that could fall apart, did. 

For years I invested every part of my creative, emotional, and intellectual self building someone else’s dreams into something successful. But they bled me dry of everything I was for their financial gain, and left me cast aside. When I decided to leave it was so painful, letting go of a bad investment isn’t always easy. I thought at this time that a future for my career was over, but it was actually just falling into a better place.

Also during this tumultuous Saturn Return, my family fell apart in the most unexpected of ways. I almost lost my angel of a mother, and in turn lost a father who never really was there anyway. A darkness fell over me and instead of feeling it, I tucked it away. I needed to be strong.  “If I don’t cry then I am strong. My mom needs to cry. Dhe can cry and I will be the security and strength that she needs.” I thought I needed to be the savior of our family, but it wasn’t something put on me by my mother or 3 sisters. It was a sense of control I desperately needed to take on in order to survive each day.

I remember this distinct moment when the intense sadness became too much. I felt and saw the energetic armor build over my entire body, securing away the pain, no longer able to access it. 

But tucking away the pain doesn’t really work, it eats away at you. Stealing away not just the darkest of feelings but also the happiest of joys. Which left me in a disassociated, flattened lack of real depth of an emotional state. An emotional state I had remained in until preparing for this exhibition.

I thought at this time that my family was completely destroyed, but it was actually just falling into a better place.

So far in my Saturn Return, it has taken my family as I knew and my once thought of lifelong career. But that’s not all. 

I left the religion I was raised in in my late 20’s. It was a rocky pathway to getting to that point, a lifetime of teachings that went against my internal thoughts and feelings on how I’d like to exist. 26 years of shame, 26 years of parts of myself laying dormant because being queer was not an option for me. How could it be? When even my own father casually admitted allowed that he couldn’t love his kid if they were gay, a memory plant medicine allowed me to recall from adolescence. The church I was raised having to claim “was true” was all I ever knew and they wouldn’t love me if I were queer. I wouldn’t make it to the highest kingdom of god and live in eternal happiness with my family if I were queer. And my very own father wouldn’t love me if I were queer. So, it wasn’t an option for me to know or understand my sexuality from a young age.

But when I left the church, and with the loving guidance of plant medicine, I was able to tap into my inner self and see that I never really was straight. Lizzie McGuire wasn’t just a girl crush, 😉 she was actually an actual crush crush. 

I uncovered what had been laying dormant, my ability to love regardless of gender. And in my late 20’s I began my journey of learning how to be queer. And what a bitch it has been to get here. 

The compounding effects of church indoctrination and shaming experiences with supposed lovers, I discovered a thick layer of internalized homophobia poisoning my ability to be free. Feelings I didn’t choose, but were placed on me by those who claim to know unconditional christlike love. The desire to be in connection with women, but always a triggering thought of it being bad and that Id get in trouble for wanting something that isn’t allowed. 

When it felt like this wound would never heal, my closest queer’s  😘 showed me a new way. And oh how I’ve found such peace in finding queer community. A space within friendship where I can see what it is to be radically myself and to be accepted. By finding queer community, I have been able to accept my sexual identity. I thought my sexual freedom would never come, but it was actually just coming at a better time. 

This wasn’t all Saturn Return had in store for me.   

During this already chaotic time in my life, I thought it was a good idea to move into a place of my own for the first time….Learning to spend that much time alone and learning to like it was an entire journey all of its own. It was during this time that I took a really good hard look at myself and decided I’d be honest about what I struggle with and figure out how to change it. 

And this is when I discovered that life as I knew it wasn’t my actual reality at all, but a neurodiverse life filtered through a neurotypical mask I placed upon on myself from a young age to survive a society I never fit into. During this time of spending a lot,  A LOT…. of time alone and hyper fixating on how to change all of the things I didn’t like about myself is when I discovered that I am Autistic ADHD. 

When i first learned this, I was devastated. I felt as if I was in the Truman Show, that life wasn’t actually as I knew it and I felt so embarrassed I didn’t know sooner. I felt as if it were a death sentence. That no one could possibly want me because of my neurodiversity. I spent even more time alone after discovering this about myself. I sat with my grief and began studying how I function, how I can take better care of myself, and how I can meet my own needs. 

When I was officially diagnosed a year after my own discovery, I was surprisingly met with relief and  gratitude for feeling truly seen for the first moment in my life. What once was grief filling me inside became a warm embrace of all that I am. I thought my autism adhd diagnosis was a death sentence, but it was actually just helping me fall into a better place within myself.

I’ve spent the last few years turning inward, holding space for myself, deconstructing harmful teachings instilled in me, and repairing myself into someone whole and new. 

In surrendering to all of the chaos my Saturn Return has brought, I have actually fallen right into the happiest place I have ever been and I’m so grateful to have been guided to this newer version of self. 

This has been my journey of reclamation and Part of this journey is following through with this show and sharing this incredibly terrifyingly vulnerable statement and my artwork. 

It may have taken me until a few days ago to be able to say this, but I can now confidently arrive here this evening and say that I am a queer, neurodivergent artist and I do belong here in this space sharing my art even simply because creating is the bliss and purpose behind living and the passion that lights my soul on fire.

And I ever so much appreciate you being here to witness and support me.

Upstairs within my collage pieces I worked through my stages, though not linear, of dealing with my internalized homophobia. It begins with Laying Dormant (before I realized I was queer). Next, Internal War, my battle with deconstructing religious trauma and my sexual shame. Followed by Turning Inward (the time I’ve spent diving deep into myself to heal). Then Coming to Peace (the place I am at where I’ve healed the triggers of sexual shame), and the last being Full Embodiment of my queerness. I don’t feel as if I have completed this step quite yet, which is why that piece has remained unfinished, but is currently a work in progress. 

I almost didn’t finish this collection of collage pieces because as time went on after making the first 3, the paper warped from humidity, crushing my perfectionist dreams and led to me having a complete meltdown. But, as this Tuesday rolled around, I didn’t feel as if I worked through everything I needed to in my reclamation process by leaving the collection incomplete and knew I needed to share my full process. I sat down to work through the hardest piece for me to face, Internal War. And I’m so happy that I did. Sitting with this piece made me sit with my feelings I’ve been holding onto and somehow I was able to release more of that pain I had been storing.

Displaying these imperfect pieces was such a difficult decision for me, but that’s how I knew it was the right thing to do. Im so grateful for how this experience has taught me to surrender to expression over perfection. 

Downstairs in the Underground is a body of work that represents my reclaimed self, the cute little forest faerie that I actually have always been. My fiber art is inspired by me getting in touch with my younger self, the one who grew up playing in the forests of the Sierra Nevadas. A childhood that imprinted into me a deep love for the mountains and forests, and every beautiful texture, smell, and living creature that exists within them. I welcome you to sit and commune in this space and to immerse yourself in Isaacs music. 

I don’t know where I’d be on this journey of reclamation without my community and without processing through creating art, which is what led to this tapestry upstairs in this corner. I macrame’d the base and would love for you all to weave ribbons onto it to create something beautiful and transform it together.

The ribbons get really tangled, I know. Don’t even bother untangling, cut from any places in the ribbon, I don’t mind. It can get messy, there’s no rules. That’s when art is made.

And with this, I wish anyone entering their Saturn return the best of luck! and will now welcome Isabel to share a poem they have so graciously written about my journey of reclamation."