After completing the eleventh painting in this series, I received the image of “snow.” I considered making a black and white painting. I had a person in mind to be the subject, and she agreed. But the snow and our schedules never aligned.

Then in the spring of the following year, I tore my ACL playing soccer, again—the left leg this time. Immediately, rather than pain or surgery or rehabilitation, my first thought was, “It’s me. The twelfth painting is a self-portrait!”

Since all the other paintings were painted between the time of my two ACL tears, I felt this painting could be a link in a circle rather than part of a chronological line. I used my injuries as inspiration for, and the subject of, this painting. And just as I saw myself reflected in each of the other portraits, I included elements from each of the other paintings in mine. This emphasizes their relationship.

A note about the poem on the ice: as I painted, the song Insomnia by Caroline Polachak kept repeating. A lyric seemed to fit the painting: “Come blue, come grey, come waves that break.” The words I painted in the ice felt like a message from deep within.

This was a real full circle moment for me. It’s a painting that’s split in half, right? And it’s me. But I am not split in half. I was thinking about the Whole of myself, but these parts, two distinct parts. The reason I ended up painting this is because it felt like part of me where I was before this project, and this new part of me that was emerging at the end of the project.

The section on the left with me in the water was when I tore my ACL in my right knee. That was the moment that I started sitting. I was healing for nine months. And for the first third of that, I couldn’t even really get out of bed very well. The right side of this painting, the winter scene where I’m walking on the lake—it’s a frozen lake—shows when I tore my ACL in my left knee.

It’s not a beginning or an end, but it’s this hinge. If you imagine the paintings all in a circle, when I look at this painting, the section to the left is the beginning of the circle, and then you move left all the way around the circle, all these other paintings were painted, and then you come back to this painting at the end on the right. This painting could be like a keystone painting that is the hinge to the other eleven.

I realized when I was healing, I was walking on ice out on the same lake that I had been swimming in, several years before in the summer when I found out I tore my ACL. So it’s not only the before and the after, but it’s the moment I found out I tore my ACL on the left and my right leg—it’s before I got it fixed.

And then the moment pictured on the right when I tore my ACL on my left leg was after the surgery. So there’s also this story between the time of healing—the moment we know something’s happening and maybe it’s painful or it’s like a period of suffering—through to a period of healing.

I was realizing about myself and my own personal transformation during this period of physical suffering and healing, that there was transformation happening spiritually. And I started to recognize elements of that in all these other paintings.

I didn’t know I was even gonna make this painting. When I started this project, I never knew that I would be showing it publicly like this. As I really started getting into meditation and spending more time in my inner life, while I was healing my knee and my outer life, I started to receive, you know, like “I should paint.” Well, what do I paint? I was having this little inner dialogue. So this two-sided part of me also represents this dialogue that was going on this whole project long. And one of the things that I got was, “Paint people.” And, “Who do I paint?” “People you know. People you don’t know.” All these things resulted in these twelve paintings.

There’s also this story between the moment we know something’s happening, and it maybe it’s painful or it’s a period of suffering, through to a period of healing. I was realizing about myself and my own personal transformation during this period of suffering and healing—like physical—that there was transformation happening, or maybe transcendence really, spiritually. And I started to recognize elements of that in all these other paintings. “Oh yeah, that’s what I was painting!” Like it was like this big a-ha moment. Because I wasn’t really sure why I was making a lot of these other paintings. I just was painting.

This is a self-portrait that represents a lot for me, and gets at parts of who I am and who I’ve become over the last six years in ways that it’s hard to talk about. Not hard to talk about because I don’t want to, but there aren’t words for it. I think that’s why I come back to art making and painting, because it is really a spiritual thing.

This painting reflects all the other paintings. All the other paintings were painted during the time I made this painting. So when I decided to make it and was figuring out how I wanted to lay it out and what it would look like, I realized it was two parts of me. Looking at all the other paintings and experiencing all the other encounters that I had with those people, every time I was painting one of the other portraits, there came a time when I just stopped. Like literally I felt I had to just stop. And it was like I was starting to see myself. It was like I was painting a self-portrait.

It was weird. You know when you’re looking in a window or shop, and you’re looking at something that’s in the window, and then at some point you see your own reflection? That happened painting after painting. And I started to realize that even though I was relating to a painting about Ashley, there was something that I felt Ashley represented, that I felt I could see in myself. And at times. it would move me to laughter. At times it would move me to tears. Oh, this is a real human experience here.

And so in this painting, I was very intentional to try to grab at least one element, sometimes more, of each of the other paintings. Just like I experienced seeing myself in every other painting, I wanted everyone else, all the other paintings, to also see themselves in this one.

I ended up writing a poem that became ultimately the name of this painting, which is “Seasons Change, but the Same Lake.” And the poem itself is about what I think I was experiencing with this impermanence of self and this change, transition, transformation.

My wish is that if you’re looking at this now that you can feel some of that energy. And that maybe it would invite you to be open to not having to figure it out, but just sit with it, you know, come back to it again and again, and be curious.

Julius and I met at a Lead Now Pittsburgh retreat. After a session, we went for a walk around a lake and out onto a pier. Gazing at cloud reflections in the water, we noticed how they stretched and broke apart on ripples left by a family of paddling ducks. We talked about legacy and sustainability, making people whole, and self-care. We imagined organizations that grow, change, evolve, breathe. We talked about all that goes on which is unseen and unmeasurable. We talked about love.

Our conversation seemed to take on the properties of the nature around us: the shine from his lavender jacket became the silvery air. His straw hat, the grass. And each thought abstracted into water, then clouds, then nothingness. Or was it back into everything-ness?

Years later, Julius reflected back on this time in a Facebook post:

“Instead of trying to force outcomes, I became flexible and free. There were times when I felt I was losing control. In hindsight, I have a deeper appreciation for what was emerging. I was being positioned to grow in ways that I’ve never experienced before. The more I became like water, the easier it was for challenges, obstacles, and crises to seemingly resolve themselves.”

So that was 2019. Six years ago. At that point we did some personal assessment stuff, and what came up for me was a really low score on like self-care. Personal self-care.

Prior to that, I barely been introduced to or interested in maintaining my own consistent personal self-care, wellness, therapeutic healing practice. For me. Like not to be better at my job, or… It was like literally for me. And to see that assessment, it was like, “Oh, it’s clear.” Like the data is literally telling you, you are not taking care of yourself. You are on the verge of burnout. And I felt that. It was just reinforced by that assessment.

We did breath work, we did mindfulness stuff, we had these healing practices that were intentionally integrated into what we were doing. I took that practice and some of the other practices I had had prior with those healing practices and became more interested in, “How can I take care of myself better?”

It’s not that I didn’t believe that I could prioritize myself, my own healing and my own wellness. At that time though, I believed or was convinced that I had no control over it. That life was just so busy. There was so much going on. I have to do all this work in community. I have to do all his stuff for family, a lot of should’s and have-to’s that I didn’t feel confident or competent or even willing to take the steps to try to start taking care of myself. It would just be like, “Nope.” Like, “On the grind, gotta hustle.” Like, you know, it’s just, I get it. It was like that indoctrination was just the way of being that I accepted.

I would want someone who’s looking at the painting to reflect on that. Maybe just plant a seed for them to raise their curiosity or have a small amount of increase in their awareness about it with the hope it could spark something in them or it could reactivate something in them where they’re like, “I think I’m gonna take better care of myself.” How are you taking care of yourself?

How are you tending to your personal wellness and healing needs? What might that look like for you? If you had an opportunity and the support and the people around you to help you and be there for you on your healing journey.

I was working two or three jobs. But at that point, I had resigned from one of those jobs. There was a lot of uncertainty. I didn’t know how I was gonna provide for myself and my family at that moment. I was terrified when I resigned from that job, but then when I went back home, things started to align and the universe started to conspire to help me in this next chapter.

I believe I got a vision directly from God to do the work that I do and to be the person that I am. But with that has been this constant thread of uncertainty. I’m walking on this path, I’m following the steps, and I can only see the step in front of me. Or I can barely see. Like, I got to put my foot down. And then you’re like, “Oh. Oh, okay. There’s another step. I hoped it would be there.” And then the step is there.

The last four months of 2024, I had four dear loved ones pass away. It was death, planning, funeral service, death, planning, funeral service, from September 16th through the end of December. I’m bringing it up because I’m leaning into my grief process and the loss process. What can emerge and what has emerged for me sometimes is that similar feeling of like, “Damn, like this is just out of control.” Like it’s out of control. And I don’t have any control over it. And then with that comes, “Gosh, what do I do with that? Like How am I supposed to function and serve myself in the healthiest way possible?”

There’s impermanence all around us. And in the unknowing of traveling through the adventure of impermanence, you just get there. If you just keep going, you will get through. And getting through isn’t resolving a hundred things or it being a specific way. It’s just literally back to the steps. I’m literally just walking through the adventure of impermanence and unknowing and trusting. And part of me there is knowing that it’s gonna be okay. Put that foot forward. Okay. Right. You can’t see, just put the foot forward. Put the foot forward.

This painting marks a threshold moment for my son, as he began his transition to adolescence. He dyed his hair blue (a sign of independence) and told me not to read to him anymore at bedtime, preferring to do it himself. So it’s also about me learning to let go. Mourning the loss of his childhood.

A single incandescent bulb seemed to spotlight all of this for me. (A second meaning of incandescent is “full of emotions,” which I was). The warm light drew out the earth tones of his skin. His orange, determined face became mottled. A slightly foreshortened composition makes his purpleish limbs seem to grow right in front of my eyes. Contrasting everything in shadow which seems to lose its color, like childhood becoming memories.

At the time we were also learning to cope with his recent OCD diagnosis, and I wondered what other challenges lie ahead for him. This little space of warmth feels so cozy and safe, yet everything outside of it was unknown and dark. I realized I couldn’t protect him anymore. I never could, really.

My dad saw this moment where he didn’t need to read to me anymore. And with other things going on in my life too, in a moment where I was having a lot of difficulty with other things in my life, this felt kind of like capturing a turning point where I was able to take control of things.

I was younger and everyone was just trying stuff. It was a product that you could put in your hair that would like move it, but it would also be dyed for a few days and would wash out in the shower. So that was me trying new things and changing what I look like.

The blanket’s pretty detailed and I remember getting that. I think that was another change for me. Like I was growing up and getting a mature bed set. So this was my mattress sitting on the ground before I got my new bed frame with the comforter. So it wasn’t like kid’s… I don’t know what I think I had like Star Wars or…. I think in that point I was starting to change and you know, that’s symbolizing something for me.

I don’t remember what the actual book was, but my dad put, what is it? “Managing Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.” I think that goes along with what I was dealing with in the moment. I guess that’s calling to what you can’t see. So I look here like I’m reading a book and you know, I feel like I’m able to like read now and do all this stuff and I’m changing with my hair and all this, but that’s like the section you can’t see.

I’ve learned a lot from that situation and that time period. I’m going through other changes now, like going to college, new experiences with that, and it’s, you know, not smooth, but I can learn things from that and be able to get through stuff now.

I could tell anybody that’s younger, but I think anybody really that’s in a changing point in their life, I think I would talk about going through change. Being able to look back at that and see that you are able to get through things even if it’s really rough.

My name is Emmett Dorsey and I feel excited for you to look at my portrait.

For me it represents this sense that maybe we think we are directing ourselves, that we’re in charge and behind the wheel, but then coming to realize that we’re being carried somewhere.

The older I get, the more I go through life and have this journey along this spiral of this path that we’re here for as people, the more I recognize the ways in which we aren’t here alone in any kind of way. There’s something deeply beautiful and grounding about that, because we are in a time when there’s so much separation.

From the time that this painting was created I have had a shift in my own… I don’t know if confidence is the word exactly, but it’s a kind of a confidence in the capacity to stay with the challenges of my life. Since this painting was made there were a lot of things that happened in my family life, my professional life, and relationship and personal life that really necessitated that I was fully here. Understanding that we are here by no accident. And we are here to be here. And sometimes we go through painful challenges to really bring that home. Because there is also beauty in that: staying with what is difficult.

In working with the ancestors, especially the grandmothers, I see them as the ones who hold the weave around us, and that they are weavers and they are holding a shawl around us children. And I’m thinking about the shawl of protection and the shawl of blessing and the shawl of care.

That cape I’m wearing is from Ireland. It’s from a Weaver family in Ireland, and so having a shawl is a relationship in a direct way to those women who weave, and very much thinking of that as an ancestral thing. I find myself in shawls a lot these days. On the Imbolc night, it’s the last night of January going into the first of February, it’s known as Bridget’s time, when we leave out the shawls at night. And the tradition is that Bridget flies through the night and brings her blessing to the shawls. And so in the morning they’re covered with the dew that carries that, and you use that shawl for medicine work through the year.

My name is Denise. I feel honored and blessed by you seeing this portrait of me.

I wanted to make a night painting, lit entirely by moonlight. My friend Denise was working on an art project about ancestral healing called StarGazer and I felt a resonance. So asked if I could paint her portrait and she accepted.

Denise chose Allegheny Cemetery as our place to meet on a chilly November night. I observed while Denise asked the ancestors where we might be welcome. Her silent conversion with the more than seen world was mesmerizing. She repeated gestures, placed rocks, and cooed into the darkness. I felt a deep sense of reverence and a presence. There was no separation between us, the land, and sky. The full moon emerged as the night breathed.

What followed was a fascinating phenomena: a period of seeing and not seeing. Light scattering (or Green Flash) is when the light changes in a way that affects the rods and cones in the eyes changing vivid oranges and reds to cool greens and goals. The moon lit Denise’s face, and the stars emerged as a mysterious backdrop. I imagined a time-lapse of the stars forming a dome of light around Denise. Her cloak, an extension of the night sky, enveloped her body. Her hands disappear before my eyes. The landscape loses its color. Everything fades.*

Weeks after starting this painting, Denise told me she had discovered that her grandmother’s ancestors were buried in the Allegheny Cemetery. Together we returned to find their graves and she shared family stories. This gave me what I needed to complete the painting. I added the family name and guiding ancestral figures.

Jeffrey Dorsey

When I saw the painting, I was down in Atlanta. My father was in hospice. He was dying. And to see the painting felt like an auspicious moment of care on multiple levels. Not only the beauty but also the feeling in the painting that there is support all the time in our passage through life, and in that case, through death.

This painting is situated one of the oldest places in Pittsburgh, the Allegheny Cemetery. It became important to me as a place where I was able to seeing myself in time, in relationship to all of the people that were resting there.

I learned that I have ancestral ties to people that were buried there, and learned about my mother’s line. So I sought out the graves of those kin, and found the plot, and that’s where I took Jeffrey when we went to find a location for the painting. It made a lot of things about my being in Pittsburgh make more sense to me. And it actually allowed me to embrace being here rather than seeing it as a transitional place for me.The gravestone says “Mother” on it. And that’s the one that’s in the plot I have a bloodline connection to. It’s from the early 1800s.

There’s another detail that continually moves me: when I look at my own face, I see an ancestor’s face. I recognize it as mine, but also see this other grandmother.

And then the way that the hands are outlined. I’ve often felt this relationship with ancestors through the hands. The significance of the hands for generations of women that that worked with their hands, and then also the hands as a kind of mystical relationship with the heart and with healing.

The posture of receptivity is part of an exploration into ancient sculptures that I’ve been doing for many years. The one that this posture is inspired by really does have to do with stepping into an archetypal embodiment of one’s own sacredness. There’s a quality of receptivity, like the openness of the hands, to receive. And then the opening of the heart to be open rather than guarded.

And the gaze—open to that cosmic connection, but also just being very firmly rooted here.

For me it represents this sense that maybe we think we are directing ourselves, that we’re in charge and behind the wheel, but then coming to realize that we’re being carried somewhere.

The older I get, the more I go through life and have this journey along this spiral of this path that we’re here for as people, the more I recognize the ways in which we aren’t here alone in any kind of way. There’s something deeply beautiful and grounding about that, because we are in a time when there’s so much separation.

From the time that this painting was created I have had a shift in my own… I don’t know if confidence is the word exactly, but it’s a kind of a confidence in the capacity to stay with the challenges of my life. Since this painting was made there were a lot of things that happened in my family life, my professional life, and relationship and personal life that really necessitated that I was fully here. Understanding that we are here by no accident. And we are here to be here. And sometimes we go through painful challenges to really bring that home. Because there is also beauty in that: staying with what is difficult.

In working with the ancestors, especially the grandmothers, I see them as the ones who hold the weave around us, and that they are weavers and they are holding a shawl around us children. And I’m thinking about the shawl of protection and the shawl of blessing and the shawl of care.

That cape I’m wearing is from Ireland. It’s from a Weaver family in Ireland, and so having a shawl is a relationship in a direct way to those women who weave, and very much thinking of that as an ancestral thing. I find myself in shawls a lot these days. On the Imbolc night, it’s the last night of January going into the first of February, it’s known as Bridget’s time, when we leave out the shawls at night. And the tradition is that Bridget flies through the night and brings her blessing to the shawls. And so in the morning they’re covered with the dew that carries that, and you use that shawl for medicine work through the year.

My name is Denise. I feel honored and blessed by you seeing this portrait of me.

I first met Yamoussa at Union Project, while helping him carry two dozen handmade African drums for a workshop for people with intellectual disabilities. To watch his interaction with them was to witness love in action. I knew I wanted to paint his portrait.

Months later, feeling something was missing in my painting, I met with him again. He explained that the rhythm he was playing when we first met was traditionally used in times of war to warn distant villages of enemies. Music as an invisible message—I was fascinated.

During an interview years later, he revealed that as a child he had to hide his drumming from his mother. There it was again: the theme of invisibility.

I’m so glad Yamoussa persisted with drumming, and eventually gained his mother’s support. Anyone who spends time with him feels blessed, and knows, as he knows, that drumming is what he was born to do.

 

Jeffrey Dorsey

Hey, how are you? I’m so glad you’re looking at my picture. That’s me. I hope you love it. The man in there in that picture is the same man you’re talking to right now. And he’s always gonna be the same man. I can’t change. That picture is gonna be the same and I’m gonna be always the same as that picture.

I love music all my life, and I was sad. I had to hide myself to go play as a little boy. When I was like five and my mother don’t want me to drum, my father won’t let me drum, and they want me to go to school. I have to hide myself, go place to play without my parents know. I go to school for half day and go hide there half day to becoming professional drummers. Til I was seven, old enough to speak to my mother, let her understand this is what I really want to do. And she’s like, “Okay, you wanna go to school for that?” I said yes. And they put me in school for that.

When I was in Africa, I just play for fun. In revolution time, we was forced to play for our country. And the first president of my country, it was obligation to play. If you don’t play, they will take your parents to jail. So we was forced to play. Until he realized, “So this kid having fun with this, I cannot put their parents in jail.” So his own wife organizes her own company. So I was a part of that.

I was so good at it, singing and playing the drum. So they sending me to the first national company in Africa called Ballet African. And when I was fifteen, I started traveling with that big company and all over the place. One day we ended up in China. I travel all over the world and ended up in United States with these drums.

My name is Yamoussa Camara. I’m from Guinea, West Africa, and guess what? That picture is me. It look like I’m standing there thinking about what I want to play. I’m thinking like, what should I play now? Yeah. but it’s beautiful though. I love it. I’m so glad you looking at it.

The one between those two drums, you know, my hand is like this and it is a drum in between, that’s called bougarabou. It’s from Senegal in West Africa. And a hundred years ago, they was making it as a telephone because before the telephone that was there, they used to communicate with that in Senegal. They can call between villages with that drum and the response will come. Like, if somebody die in this town, they will announce that sadness from that drum, the one in the middle right there, the one with a string in it. It’s called bougarabou.

And the one in my left hand that’s djimbe. And that’s used to let military to know where’s the enemy coming from. But you have to speak the language to understand what they say. I can call your name in that djimbe by playing your name. If you speak language, you would automatically turn around and look at me. And that djimbe was telling the military, this is left side, that’s where the enemy coming from, or right side, that’s where enemy’s coming from. That’s djimbe.

The big one, the big dundun, that used to be for the village. When the king have a meeting, they played it three time. Boom. And wait for three minutes. Boom. Wait for three minutes, boom. The third time, that’s it. Everybody will come and the king will tell people what’s going on, what’s the news, what really going on. And everybody will understand.

It was the bedroom light that first grabbed my attention. Then, a dream of a woman in white. I asked my friend Susan if I could paint her sitting in one of the chairs and she agreed.

As I painted, something peculiar happened. The window shade, which usually blows in, suddenly blew out. I felt as though the air was being sucked from the room while the light poured in from outside. And I was moved by a song I was listening to while painting—Where I Wait by Null+Void. It includes this lyric:

When I wake up my eyes are open. I can see.
I can hear you all around me. I feel free.
There is comfort here where I wait for you.
There is sunlight shining through.

I imagined these as the words of the woman in the chair. Or the words from the light, shining through, letting the woman know there is comfort and freedom in the light. All of these elements felt like medicine. But it never crossed my mind that this might be medicine for Susan. Until she shared with me later about the passing of her mother.

Jeffrey painted this painting when my mother was disappearing from view through Lewy Body Dementia. She was disappearing—losing her capacity to speak, her capacity to walk and to express herself. I would go to visit and used to have conversations with my mom, we would sit. She would reach over and touch my hair and I would hold her hand. So when I see the painting, I see there used to be somebody sitting in the rocking chair. And the person sitting in the rocking chair dissolved into light. Mystery.

The way that Jeffrey painted the blind, it’s lifted up so the light comes through, and it’s like when my mom disappeared, the light could come through. It was obscured in a way before when we were caught up in what we were caught up in. But towards the end it wasn’t, and so the light could come through. We could relate to each other in that light.

I also see the figures on the side that are like a bride and groom. This is where Jeffrey was prescient because I was not married yet. It’s striking, it’s moving to me that off my right shoulder in the back there’s a bride and groom who aren’t yet in the picture for me, but they’re in the painting.

Then the pandemic came and there were more disappearances. There were more people who weren’t sitting in the chair anymore. There are more things that weren’t like you thought they were anymore. So there was this question, how now to relate to this life that is disappearing and changing moment to moment to moment, like it always does. And somehow it became so much more apparent and poignant in that time.

One response to the pandemic was that Ted and I said, “What are we waiting for? Let’s get married.” So we did. That was a good fortune and a collective experience that brought with it, “Wait a minute, what are we waiting for? Everything can go away. Why are we waiting one moment more when everything can disappear, everything can change?” So looking at it, I see an evolution of love, from needing it to be solid to knowing it’s not. And that as it’s not, it shines through more and more.

I know you’ve lost people too. I know you’ve lost things that matter to you. I know we’re in this together and I hope you feel that we’re all in this together, this amazing experience of risking to love and hold on and hold on and hold on. And in one way or another, inevitably have to let go.

When people gaze at the painting, I wish for them that they get to settle into just being present. Without any expectation, without having to think of anything or feel anything in particular, but just let themselves pause for a moment to just stop, to be present with whatever’s present for them. That would be my wish for them.

I asked if I could paint yvette’s portrait soon after she started working at Union Project. We had both recently visited The Legacy Memorial in Alabama, which honors the Black people who were terrorized, lynched, and humiliated by racial segregation.

My first attempt to honor yvette’s healing energy showed her palm on a tree filled with light, bathing hundreds of names of Black people who were killed. Letter by letter I etched them into thick paint with a palette knife, and wept as I repeated their names aloud.

But the painting was too literal, too painful, and not my story to tell. I set it aside for months before I felt emotionally ready to paint over it. I mourned and healed—the very processes I was trying to evoke in the painting.

For this version I chose yvette’s ancestral tea blend offerings as my inspiration. The delicate vine print on her skirt contrasts the bold message on her shirt—both expressions of the love I see in her.

I am so grateful to yvette for staying in relationship with me as I found my way through this painting journey—the longest and most difficult of all the painting journeys in this exhibit.

You know, this painting is not the original painting. There’s a story in that. It was a way to bring honor to those who had come before. And as I stand there, and I look at these brown leaves, the relationship with my ancestors, which also includes the trees and the earth and the water, is very present. The people are still represented in this painting, even though their names, which at one point did exist in the painting, actual physical names that you may be able to make out, are no longer there. This is so personal to me.

I find myself wondering what you see and do you see yourself, and what do you feel and what does that feel like? Do you feel honored? Can you step into it? Do you wonder what I’m thinking? What would you be thinking if you were standing here? The words on my shirt, can you read them? Is that hopeness or dopeness?

For my ancestors, I see each one of those leaves as the ancient ones who, you know, the ancestors are right behind my eyes. They’re right here. And each one of those leaves, when I think about our ancestors, I think about them being behind us, beside us, in front of us. Just all around us. So for my ancestors, it’s more of a, “I do hope you feel honored, and feel seen and not abandoned.”

These past several months have really demonstrated in a beautiful and challenging way the interconnectedness and the interdependence of all things. Beings. And I’m grateful to be in this, this Thing, with all the other beings. I am reminded that I am not alone. None of us are.

I was born Yvetta Lynn Shipman. Later became yvette lynn shipman. and I feel tender. I feel open. I feel proud. I feel exposed, I feel loved by you looking at my painting.

I felt an urge to document the pandemic by making a painting with someone wearing a mask. Inspired by a TED talk about the stories that light our path forward in uncertain times, I showed some of my portraits to my Lead Now Pittsburgh cohort and invited them to let me know if they were interested in being painted. Evaine volunteered.

On the second of two walks along the North Shore, Evaine and I came upon this groove of young saplings. Evaine was concerned about the health of the trees and ran over to inspect one. Her inquisitive one-eyed squint felt like it revealed something personal, like she was looking inside herself, ready to break free.

Evaine has always been a warrior for nature, and in this moment she became nature. She became the tree. Her floral print mask and wool sweater blend and swirl into the patterns of leaves, vines and branches surrounding and supporting her. I purchased new plant-based oil paints to intensify the colors of this painting. I wanted it to glow. I wanted the inner light to be undeniable.

It looks like a photo to me. Of the paintings that Jeffrey did in this series, not that it’s not beautiful, but it’s a very natural picture and setting and very realistic portrayal of myself, versus beautifying someone. It feels very real. My facial expression and the look of skepticism on my face is fairly common. It’s very real.

That’s along the Allegheny River Trail, along the North Side. And some group had cleared a lot of the invasive species in that area and planted some new saplings for trees. And then those are protective for new planting.

You can see in the background some of the other trees are popping out of those tubes. Those tubes are not supposed to be left on for very long. They’re supposed to be on long enough that they’re established and animals can’t get to them. But at some point you have to remove them so the tree can breathe. So why I was looking was that it looked like there was a lot of moisture in there and I was like, is this rotting inside? And that was what I was trying to figure out. So I actually don’t know if that’s alive or not. We were in a leadership program which was aimed at executive directors and leaders in nonprofit sector. I was actually ousted from my organization without cause or explanation on a random Tuesday afternoon. So, a bit of a shock and certainly a blow to my… to everything—to my ego, my plans, my belief in some things.

Jeffrey was introducing this project and saying, “I think I wanna do something with this. Would other people be willing to be one of the subjects?” And I immediately raised my hand. Without knowing really what had happened and what my reputation was gonna be like, so wanting to be a part of it to have that relevance and have a sense of importance and belonging.

For my wedding photos, which is like twenty years ago now, I went and did the whole makeup trial and all of that and they did several hairstyles and they looked fancy and special and I was like, “This is isn’t me.” And they did really heavy makeup and I was like, “I don’t even really wear makeup.” And so I was like, “When I take my wedding photos, and I look at them however many years later, I want it to look like me. Not like, wow, what happened to you?” So I think that whole mind journey has occurred. You’ve got that split second of, “I could look prettier,” but at the same time, like, “This is who I am.”

I remember it was cold, and I have a man’s sweater and I just pulled my hair back and I’m wearing a mask, and not that I didn’t care, but it was a different sense of importance. That was not really what was important. It was just a different mentality.

Through that experience of being fired and being in that program and everything that’s happened since, I think there’s just a sense of—for so many years as an executive director and with all those responsibilities of managing a team and pleasing funders and, partners and all of those things—just a realization of how much I had stretched myself thin to meet all those different needs. It was draining. So even though I could do it, there were these moments of, “Should I have been doing that in the first place, and should I just stick to what I know and be okay with who I am? And the people that want to be around me will find me. And you know, the rest don’t, not that they don’t matter, but they don’t matter.” So, that was a good time for that bit of growth.

My name is Dr. Evaine Kim Sing, and I feel grateful that you have the opportunity to look at this painting and see me at a time when I didn’t know what I would be.

Leonard and I met at a Lead Now Pittsburgh retreat. One session was about rest, and I shared that I had recently started meditating. Leonard described his own unsuccessful attempts at meditation and asked me to teach him. I explained that I was not a teacher but he insisted. So we sat together. Within minutes, he said it was the first time he had experienced a release from pain. That was powerful for both of us.

Weeks later I asked if I could paint his portrait. Leonard agreed, and took me to his favorite spot in Frick Park. I chose this view because it accentuates his physicality, vulnerability, connection to his surroundings, and because it places the viewer directly in his gaze. While painting it, I remember sensing that I shouldn’t finish painting his wedding ring. So I left the underpainting and light from the canvas to shine through.

Six years later while interviewing Leonard for this exhibit, I told him about the ring. He was stunned. He told me a moving story about how his father had recently passed down a beautiful blue onyx ring (the color of his shirt in the painting) and said he has been wearing it as his wedding ring ever since.

Jeffrey Dorsey

When I look at this painting, I see transition. I see transformation. On the left you see this tree that is flourishing. It’s connected to the roots, and there’s a lot to be expected. There’s a lot to look forward to on the left side.

Then on the right side it’s still connected to the roots but you see devastation, and that devastation could possibly lead to death. All of us are in between life and death. We don’t know where we are within that, but we’re all in between life and death.

So it teaches me to take full advantage of every day, to seize the moment and to really stay focused on my aspirations and work to fulfill whatever those aspirations are so that I could truly leave a legacy and, and really make an impact in the world.

When you look at this painting, I was at a time financially where I was surviving, but I wasn’t thriving. Since then I’ve taken on a role—I became an executive leadership communities director, oversee 600 people in 28 different states. I had an opportunity to become a chief of staff during this time for State Representative Jake Wheatley in the 19th Legislative District. So financially I went to a place where I was feasting. I went to a place where I had greater mental clarity. I was in a place where I learned about self-care and mutual care so I could take care of myself as well as taking care of the ones around me in which I love.

And that pose is beautiful. What this pose tells me is at that time—the way that I’m sitting with my palms up—I was open. I was receptive, and it shows that I was still. There’s a scripture that says, “Be still and know that I am God.” And I was doing just that. But I was also open to learning the practice of meditation. Open to receive all the great things that came my way. That’s what I see when I look at that pose. Present. Focused. Looking into the future with great expectation, understanding that it’s unknown, but whatever it was to come, I was ready for it.

A lot of times, I dealt with anxiety. Whoever has been poor before, you don’t wanna return to that state. So as you elevate through life, there’s a constant anxiety because it’s like, “Okay, let me be careful what I say. Let me be careful what I’m doing.” So you have to understand that there’s always going to be something on your mind. But there’s also times where you have to clear your mind and focus so that you could be successful for the people that love you, and also for the people that are following you.

My name is Leonard Hammonds II. I feel honored and blessed by you looking at my portrait.

Ciora was the first person I ever met who was transitioning gender. We met through the Lead Now Pittsburgh Leadership Cohort, which was designed for leaders to train, and rest, together. I remember Ciora was exhausted, and she often stepped away from workshops to support other Black Transgender people.

Then she shared news—she had received a grant to open a center for her organization, and she was ecstatic! I was so happy for her and asked if I could paint her picture. She agreed and we imagined it might be of her in her new space.

But a few weeks later her building had a fire. While she was busy figuring out a new way forward, I realized I shouldn’t be asking her to take time away from all she had to do. So instead I participated in a march she was leading on the Trans Day of Remembrance. This painting shows Ciora stopping the march to center Black Transgender people by asking white allies to form a supportive circle around them. Then, as part of a water libation ritual, Ciora called out the names of Black Transgender women who had been murdered. We repeated each name with her, honoring them together.

Jeffrey Dorsey