featuring photograph by Michael McCarthy
 
Left: velvet, photograph by Michael McCarthy
Right: velvet, heirloom lace, silk charmeuse, thread.
 
21 x 34 in
 
The Offering is an exploration of ancestral feminine strength—a living current of power, wisdom, and tenderness moving through generations. The work reimagines inheritance not as possession, but as transmission: the act of receiving the strength of women who came before and offering it forward to those yet to come. Through inherited material and embodied ritual, the diptych’s pairing of artifact and image becomes a tender yet tenacious invocation of continuity. The artist hand-stitched her own weightlifting straps (right) using heirloom lace from her maternal ancestors—lace once crafted as a collar for a blouse, lovingly preserved through five generations of her foremothers. Layered with silk charmeuse, these delicate remnants are reborn as tools of strength, the soft and the enduring stitched together. Kneeling before her barbell in a moment suspended between stillness and exertion (left), the artist’s hands—bound in her handmade lace straps—grasp the gleaming steel. In that breath before movement, poised in grace and power, her gesture is energized, reverent, and illuminated by all who came before her. The antique frames and their vintage velvet backings hold significance beyond their physical presence, carrying the weight of history and inheritance. The artist carefully gathered and composed the entire format, drawing inspiration from two heirloom daguerreotypes of her ancestors, whose ghost-like portraits rest amid gilded filigree, embossed leather, and rich velvet beds. She envisioned the diptych as a storied object, as if it had been discovered in the shadows of her grandmother’s attic and brought into the light—revealing the histories, presences, and energies held within each element. The Offering reflects the artist’s purpose: to feel the lineage of feminine resilience moving through her body, to honor it by living in its strength, and to ensure it continues unbroken. It acknowledges that the strength we carry is not solitary, but ancient and shared—a force that cycles endlessly, binding past, present, and future in its unending exchange. At its heart, the work speaks to sacred reciprocity: between the body and the earth, between labor and love, between ancestors and descendants, between the ancient and the modern. It imagines strength not as conquest, but as communion—a gesture of gratitude, a vow of continuity. Ultimately, The Offering stands as both homage and promise: a recognition that the feminine is not fragile, but eternal—strength reborn through tenderness, power sustained through care, and wisdom passed through the hands, hearts, and bodies of women.