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Celeste Hutchings,
To Know Strength, Edinburgh UK, 2024,
Self-Portrait,
24.1 x 33cm (9.5 x 13 in).
To Know Strength
While painting “To Give Soul” I was recovering from dental surgery.
20 years ago, my family (our Mom, my siblings and I) survived a sever car accident on the highway.
Mom had fallen asleep at the wheel after we’d departed in the middle of the night, earlier than planned, to leave the domestically abusive environment we were in.
On my end, all that got physically fractured were two of my teeth. Hence the dental surgery.
All of this to say that healing and recovery is enduring. It is universal in the sense that most everyone has, or is touched by, at least one experience like this at some point in their lives.
Rightfully not everyone will share it, but to know strength is to honour the care you have put into that healing. To know strength is to honour the care others have put into their healing, whether you are made aware of it or not.
That’s why I made “To Give Soul”.
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Celeste Hutchings,
With Patience, Edinburgh UK, 2024,
Self-Portrait,
24.1 x 33cm (9.5 x 13 in).
With Patience
Anything you are given, you can put to use, as strands of fabric to weave a beautiful life.
It doesn’t matter how raw the material is, whether it comes from pain or pleasure. It doesn’t matter how long you have ignored your experiences as resources.
In time, without judgement you will have the strength to look at the value of everything you have and everything that you have let go of, and see your ability to value yourself as gold.
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Celeste Hutchings,
Women, Edinburgh UK, 2024,
Self-Portrait,
24.1 x 33cm (9.5 x 13 in).
Women
Ever since I was young, seeing women enjoy being beautiful, strong, capable and present, as they are and as they want to be, has made me feel the safest.
It has taken me a long time to understand myself as a woman, and truthfully I think that goes for most women. Social projections of what femininity is never quite embrace it.
I think that is because these projections try to render stagnant or still a force that is ever changing. A force that is cyclical, creative, sustaining, destructive and rebirthing.
Fucking women, damn I am grateful to be one.