Woman Trying to Step Outside Herself 1991

In 1991 my family and I moved from the Zuni Indian reservation in New Mexico to Uptown in Chicago.  We had two young daughters, and were to live there for a year before moving back to New Mexico.  The titles of my pieces from that time reflected my world.  Many have to do with struggle and separation, Woman Bleeding, Woman Being Pecked, and Bound Man to name a few.  The work also seemed to be about immanent danger and isolation, such as  "Man with Snake on his Head" and "Man Looking both Ways". When I call up these images, and what was going on with me at the time,  I know things were difficult, yet my memory is that it was a tremendously exciting and rewarding experience, one that I wouldn't have traded for anything.

Woman Trying to Step Outside Herself spoke to me of confinement, of trying to move away from fear and lonliness.  At the time, one of my biggest challenges was expanding the boundaries of who I was as a person.  The old Holly wasn't working in many ways, and the new Holly had no idea of where she was to go, just that she had to leave, to move on.