I came up with the idea for this painting while thinking about how my bed in prison gives me the space to grow or change. The woman in the hourglass is changing with time. She's shedding her old self and growing to become better. As the sand falls it changes into color which seeps out and turns into a butterfly. I chose a butterfly because to me that represents freedom. I painted everything black and white to symbolize the past, and the butterfly in color to represent the future.
This painting is symbolic. In prison we are assigned a bed, a small space that we can utilize and make a place where we can focus on our growth, meditate, do group homework, pray, or whatever is needed to make change. We can either stay stuck in our past mistakes or become a better version of the person we used to be.
This painting was commissioned for the exhibition The Only Door I Can Open: Women Exposing Prison through Art, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 2025.
