✽ usti waya ✽

A piece I created when I began exploring my Indigenous roots and connecting with my soul purpose on a more profound level. As I worked on this piece, I remember being overwhelmed by the love surrounding me as the ancestral imagery poured out of my fingertips. As an artist, I am always changing, shifting and questioning - not only my direction in life, but also my identity and role in society. This is a work where I really challenged myself to love every version of myself more fully in order to honor myself as a multi-spirited soul here to grow and evolve. It is most vulnerable self portrait - where I explore myself from various vantage points and recognize myself as the shape-shifter I am. With a polished and definite “identity” we become restricted and bound - but by having unconditional love for our infinite desire to seek - we become free. 

A piece about how transformative love can be. How our woundedness in love can bring forth newer, stronger versions of ourselves.

A piece made during a time in my life where I really began to examine where Spirit flows through me as an artist and creative - what ignites my passions and tends to my inner flame. It is spelled with deep imagery and symbolism -embodying everything my soul loves and feels connected to. It honors my Indigenous heritage and connection to my ancestors, my gratitude for the natural world through plant spirit medicine, my wide-eyed wonder to explore astrology and mysticism, and my never-ending desire to connect with others through ceremonial tattooing. A self-portrait envisioning myself with psychic markings that act as protective armor and channels for ancient wisdom to guide me. The marking over my third-eye is the symbol for the asteroid Vesta, who serves as a reminder to live courageously, pure of heart and practice unrelenting devotion to my creative spirit. 

A piece about finding love for myself in one of the darkest chapters of my life. A time where I faced my fears and shadow behavior in order to experience purification and soul renewal. During the process of making this piece, I finally began to learn acceptance and forgiveness for myself. By recognizing my own fracture points and areas of wounding, I was able to give those parts of myself the love I so desperately needed. This is a piece about how exiling or neglecting ourselves and our pain can lead to self-destruction or entrapment if we are not careful. Also an ode to my love for the powerful messages and guidance found in the tarot, this piece was a revisualization of a card that spoke to me many times to face my own self-imposed limitations. On my journey towards cultivating more love for myself and my expressive voice, encountering my inner self critic has been an especially challenging aspect of myself to nurture.