Summer Pop Up Series: Artist Rachel Dove "Life and Water"

Artist's Statement about "Life and Water"

We came from the sea and evolved into the most intelligent species. When we are born, we come from a womb of our mother’s water before we can breathe and see. We are baptized in holy water. We cleanse ourselves in water. The fresh water sources on our planet keep us from extinction.

Water isn’t just physical, it transcends all literal definition. Images of water bring a sense of calm. Sounds of trickling rain drops soothe the mind. The tides shift with the moon and command the changing landscape of the planet. Water can kill. Water can save.

When I look at water I immediately feel euphoric. I am grateful. I am humbled. I am so small, yet I am so big.

To me, water symbolizes fertility, and the ebb and flow of life. When one life ends, another begins. The wave goes out, and is sucked back in. The graceful and languid expressions of a woman’s body remind me of the water. The constant movement of water, its flexibility and it’s invulnerability to every outside influence, give it strength. You can’t break water. You can’t destroy it. It will be here after we’re all gone.

You can’t destroy a woman either. You can take her rights, you can control her body, but she will always provide the life that mankind needs to survive. That gives us power, and they know it.

This landscape is fluid and will change again. The tide is low, it’s almost dry. But when the moon shifts, our time will come.

Perhaps we all became too bold lately. The Me Too movement, a female VP…that’s so scary for them. They felt themselves losing control. So they filled the highest court in the land with brainwashed women and misogynists. They use our religions against us. The defile the good lessons of that book. They tell us we must give birth after a violent rape, even if we just became a woman. They tell us we mustn’t extract an inviable pregnancy at the risk of our own lives. They let us die for the stronghold they refuse to lose.

But we will prevail. We must bide our time and push every boundary. We must teach our daughters, and protect them. It begins and ends with us.

So I continue, grateful for my freedoms up to this point, and feeling a responsibility toward that same end.

Being a mother is a fundamental right.

It is our largest and most undeniable power.

It is who we are.

But it also who we Choose, or choose Not to be.