And Yet, We Bloom
I woke up, and the world seemed to be on fire.
With chipmunk cheeks, I came to on a mattress on the floor of my living room. I was in my tiny backhouse on the inner east side of San Antonio, living behind my friends’ old home, struggling to wake up after a complicated wisdom tooth removal. The entire country was already in the streets lashing out against the murder of George Floyd. It felt like the world came into this massive uproar in the short time I was passed out. I started feeling it all at once.
The video of the murder was everywhere. I couldn’t watch. I saw peaceful protests swiftly turned violent by the police who ‘swore’ to protect the people they beat down. I saw police marching down streets yelling at people to get inside and arresting, beating, spraying those who wouldn’t. I saw so many young people and kids bleeding from attending a peaceful protest, shot in the eye with rubber bullets, gassed, and so much more. Old people were being pushed down by police in the streets. I saw so many digital pamphlets out on what to do if you get arrested, on stories of others who were arrested and detained in a random parking garage, and so on…
I cried at so much of it til my head felt like it was going to split. The grief in people’s words and faces was so powerful and overwhelming. I marched with my friends, sister and boyfriend, and we saw our black friends with hopelessness in their eyes. Anger. Fear. Emptiness. All of it.
Everyone started banding together. It was so beautiful and so sad. Everyone grew so exhausted yet so many kept going at it. We met up and did whatever we could think of. Posters. Art. Marching. Screaming chants. Donations. Giving masks and art. Giving food. Offering support.
I kept reading online that everyone could contribute something. Artists were urged to contribute art, so I did. At first it took the form of small scale items. Then, after a bit more processing, an image came to me and I drew it on my iPad. To be honest, the line drawing for it was the most beautiful thing I think I’ve drawn. I haven’t really shared it with many people, and I don’t think I will for a while. It was the first rendering of a nameless mural I wanted to paint.
I wanted to make something massive and healing for everyone. Something that takes you in, not the other way around. Some beacon of hope, of solidarity, of support for the black community and all of us who march alongside them. Something to remind us that we need to be there for each other at all times and at all costs.
I drew two women, one black and one indigenous, locking eyes and touching hands in a gesture of trust and solidarity. They float in a peaceful river filled with blooming lotus flowers, the flower that can bloom each morning immaculately, out of the muddiest, dirtiest, murkiest waters. A flower that represents women, especially women of color, persevering. A symbol of rising up out of a situation where all odds are stacked against you and still blooming with strength and grace.
I based the women’s likenesses off of me and my best friend of over a decade. I want to be there for her and she wants to be here for me, no matter how far apart we are. As a society, it’s important for us to feel this warmth and love for each other, and fiercely defend each other from mistreatment and abuse. This mural is my contribution to my city to remind us of that. Love each other, trust each other, and bloom despite the circumstance.
And Yet, We Bloom
Acrylic on wood
20’ x 10’
Houston St. & Navarro St. intersection
San Antonio, Texas 78205
2020
