Combine a photo conference, creative motivational books, with continued isolation, and you have the recipe for nostalgic introspection and a touch of inspiration.

As my project planner fills, I've been wanting to start on something attached to memories. I started toying around with the idea of using my son's old rocking horse in a series. My mind keeps revisiting my own childhood, and the rocker has followed me from place to place for years. It seemed like a good place to start creating something nostalgic.

To be honest, this new triptych makes me cringe. Like most of us, I am vain enough to want my flaws, well, if not removed, then minimized. Instead, for this series, I wanted my self reflection to be raw and real. Vulnerability is not my style, but brutal self honesty is. There is little anyone can criticize that hasn't rolled around ad nauseum in my mind. And I can't preach self worth if I can't own my own flaws. So you get a woman sized... well... sized, and trying to maintain that honesty, unretouched.

Once again, like other pieces of my work, there is personal symbology involving color and the ill fitting but comfy t-shirt dress.  Your reaction will be different than mine.  Allow it to be, and ask yourself why.

When looking back at our lives, it is what we focus on and hold on to that will color our present.

What helps and pushes us to face forward? What keeps us looking back at that which makes us blue? What makes us feel like we have to grip it so we don't feel like we are tipping?

Does our life become nothing more than sepia colored memories, or do we fight to remember but turn and face what's next?

The challenge will always be to not simply rock ourselves into a comfort that keeps us in the same space, rather than growing.