Va – Stories by Women of the Moana

My sisters and I live different lives than we used to.

I watch their online stories traveling Europe and dancing at music festivals.
We discuss pending court cases and struggles of self-employment.

The days of desperately seeking babysitters, carpooling for school events, and borrowing from each other to pay the rent are gone.

We are less compliant and more calm.
We are more heartbroken and less cooperative.
We are smarter and deeper.

That’s what this painting is about.
Letting go. Floating.

I’ve always loved Ella Fitzgerald singing Cry Me A River.
The lyrics say it all. Cry me a river, I cried a river over you.

But the version that goes with this painting is Cry Me A River by Julie London, Live at the Americana Hotel, New York 1964. It’s breathtakingly beautiful.

So this painting is titled Cry Me A Moana and captures a similar sentiment as the song.
(Moana is a word that means ocean in several Pacific Island languages.)

Five brown-skinned full-bodied women floating in water.
They are reaching and twisting.
Their respectable white dresses become translucent, and the flower leis of honour are drifting away, and the women don’t care.
They float above fish skeletons and remnants of the past.

I hope it resonates. I want to make art that people feel, not only look at.