Valentine Alma
Valentine Alma
Bares Bones (Please Love Me)
Honoring bodies, spirits, and community through art and ritual.
After my house burned, I went into a time of shadows. I had finished the project that had pulled me onwards for over a year and nothing was left, not even the comfort of my own bed to rest and recover. I was falling in love very deeply for the first time in a long time - and that alone, made my shadow soar. In the darkness, a story emerged from the depth of my memory; Skeleton Woman, as told by Clarissa Pinkola Estes in Women Who Run With The Wolves. In her retelling of this powerful Inuit tale, she speaks of the power of love to heal ancient wounds - and how these wounds come to the surface to be held. It helped make sense of the deep chaos I was feeling and why suddenly ancient traumas reared their heads. As I was holding to that story, I found a book of life-size photographies of bones, the entire skeleton all together than all apart. And so, I started painting her - skeleton woman - my wounded deep self demanding to be loved, to be brought to light. It was the slowest painting I have done - most of it was time spent sitting with her, crying with her, looking more itensely than I knew I could. It took many months, but it transformed me and my way of painting completely. It taught me so mucha bout myself - and about my practice. How ironic that from facing the parts of me I struggle to love, my favorite painting ever could emerge. But such is the nature of shadow work: in holding space for discomfort, magic is born.
Chat des Artistes
2205 Parthenais
Tiohtia-ke, Montréal, QC , Canada
Photo Credits: Carlos Mao, Catherine Simard, Océane Leclair & Alex Tran
All artworks Property of Valentine Alma @All Right Reserved 2020
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