I was commissioned to do this series of paintings with another artist, Rachel Starnes, as a part of grant project. The goal of this grant was to give former foster youth the opportunity to tell their stories in their own ways in truth-telling circles. We worked together with Tia Humphrey in order to tell her story through this series of six canvases. Each canvas is meant to represent a different age and the events that took place during those ages.

I came up with the idea of using a tree to symbolize Tia in the different stages of her life in the foster program. From here, we worked with her on what the concept of each image might be. Once we solidified the concepts for each, we decided to divide the work up into foreground and background. I elected to work on the foreground, and Rachel took care of the backgrounds. We eventually combined the two aspects and put on the finishing touches before sending the files off to be printed. This project was very rewarding to work on as we saw what it meant to be able to tell Tia’s story visually. She was pleased with the work we put forth, and this project has been showered in compliments at the various events that it has been viewed. “System vs. Growth” have been viewed nationally, and soon will be seen globally through a global publication.