Portrait of MC

I Witnessed her at my house, no heat in the studio this winter. We set up a cozy scene in my makeshift studio-living room, and I put her in charge of arranging the candles. She was thoughtful with her task, arranging four in a row and a single white one on its own. We blessed the space and settled in...

It wasn't long before there were tears in both our eyes.

The story of her Choices; of a baby aborted, a series of miscarriages, a son born and raised... So heartbreakingly tender. So real. So weightily carried for 67 years. And here we were, in my little home, with my own son's toys around us, hot tea in home-made mugs, the couch left over from my marriage, as she opened her legs and spread her story.

She had been dragging this weight a long time. Her own life's story of coming out strong and happy from a life of extraordinary adversity would put brave men to shame. I knelt at her feet, nudging into the tender places with soft questions and dropping soft droplets of pink on the canvas.

We invited in the beings.

We invited in forgiveness.

We cried.

Eventually the time came toward a close and we sealed the space and I sent her off with a hug. Over the following weeks I continued to work on the painting here and there and little extraordinary things started to happen. The presence of children kept showing up in the painting. My own son, woke up early the morning I was going to put the first layer of gold on and helped me lay it in with his own finger tips (he has never participated in a painting this much). The blue of the painting came from a bizarre kid's ink pen from one of his craft kits (a pen which consequently stained half my house! But I digress...). I would hear children's laughter while I painted and often left painting sessions feeling very much like the spunky tutu-wearing girl I was at 5.

In the end, I nick-named this painting the "RainbowCrystalDiamondHeart Painting" after what I wanted my mom to legally change my name to when I was 5 (not a whole lot has changed). I found myself saying, "this would be a perfect painting for a little girl's room"... Admittedly not something I say often about my work. Came to find out not long after that all four miscarriages were baby girls.

So essentially I made a painting for a little girl's room that never was.

Oh my.

She confessed to me when she came to see the finished painting the other day, that she had almost not come for the Witnessing because she was so worried that what would come out would be so dark. Seeing the finished product, a painting of undeniable innocence and sweetness, moved her to tears. The forgiveness landed at last and she was freed from a lifetime of guilt.

We are so brutal to ourselves in our thinking. We judge and condemn and trap ourselves inside prisons of our own making. Torturing ourselves behind the thick walls of our skulls. All in the name of culture, bound up by the things we have been told are right or wrong or good or bad. Wrapped and knotted and squeezed till our light is dim and our health is compromised... And yet, there is, in the very essence of it all, such sweetness, such unlimited potential and freedom. So much gold and bright colors...

What knot could you loosen if you gave yourself permission to do so? What colors would it set free? These are questions worth sitting with, I find. In the end, we imprison ourselves far worse than any jailer...

xo,

AMIEL

Maker's Muse Award! And the post I wrote for them...

I was recently a recipient of a Kindle Project's Makers Muse Award (AMAZING!!!!) and they featured me (and a post I wrote) on their blog. So I am Re-posting it here! To see the original post go HERE.

Kindle loves this project because... Ranier's spirit, way of working, and her incredibly conceived of and executed pieces make her a perfect fit for our Makers Muse awardee crew. She embodies the kind of brazen experimentation, thoughtful practice, and aesthetic beauty that we so admire and appreciate. Her artwork seems to be a melting of genres and fields from experimental to therapeutic. Her storytelling is visceral and gives voices to those that need to be heard. She is a true creative trailblazer and woman of wonder.

Makers Muse

Post from Ranier Amiel:

A few days ago I was shuffling around on the floor of my studio knocking some stretcher bars together and wondering who the canvas I was prepping was going to be for. This is often the case with my paintings, I will know I need to paint, will feel fairly clear on the size and shape of the piece, but I have no idea whom the painting will be of. As I busily hammered and stretched the canvas, my friend’s mom wandered into the studio and asked to use the restroom. She stood there after for a moment as if dazed and I felt the compulsion to show her my art. I didn’t know her well, but knew enough to know she would probably be open to it, so I offered and she accepted.

I started telling her a little about my process and few of the stories behind some of the paintings (there are stacks leaned up against my studio walls). When I looked back at her tears were streaming down her face.

“I need this,” she said as the tears came down. “I have been praying for this. I did not know what it would be, but I have been asking for this.”

Turns out that who had walked into my studio was, unbeknownst to me, the survivor of one of the most horrific stories of trauma, torture and abuse that is humanly possible. The things that were done to her from ages 3-20 are so gut wrenching and inhumane they were hard for my mind to digest. They still are actually. The fact that she is alive and functioning is a testament to her incredible determination, hard work (she will tell you she has been doing ‘her work’ for 20 years), and her extraordinary tenacity of hope. The fact that she was able to raise a really great man who is my dear friend is honestly something of a miracle to me.

Needless to say, the canvas I was stretching was clearly for her.

A few days later we started our process together. We created sacred space and talked and drew all morning, then again in the afternoon. Normally the Witnessing process will last two hours or so, but this was not a ‘normal’ situation. Over the weekend she came in to write and draw all over her raw canvas alone and I went in afterwards to gesso (a white primer paint used on raw canvas) overtop. My whole body was shaking by the time I finished. I found myself praying out loud with each brushstroke to anything that would listen. As I did, it was as if all the other women, from all the other paintings in the room (and beyond?) were standing around me, helping. Holding her, holding me, holding space. Wild stuff.

When we started the painting of her actual pussy a day later, it was one of the most surprisingly joyous mornings I’ve ever had in my studio. Though there was still the grip of horrid memories that would come up in her like poisonous bubbles from the depths, we found ourselves laughing and talking and eating lots and lots of chocolate. Asking her questions about her pussy and who she was and what she (her pussy) liked, lit her up and made her laugh, and by the end we were both surprised to see a canvas COVERED in bright color. It looked like it was attacked by fun. That was the only way I could think to describe it. It looked like her, as a little girl, or who she would have been as a little girl, had that experience not been robbed from her. It was the first layer of the painting and it was her essence. It was beautiful.

I then had to go teach a fitness class and she stayed in the studio and danced and finished writing on the side edges of the canvas that she had not gotten to before. When I came back in, bright eyed and sweaty, the room was thick and heavy again. The whimsical colors from the morning were framed with words like ‘torture’ and ‘rape’ and ‘I was just a little girl’. My stomach clenched and my hands went to my heart. Oof.

We stood there for some time looking at these beginnings on the canvas as I tried to grapple with the fact that all of this exists in the same world. It seems impossible to me that torture and first kisses can exist in the same reality, really just paper shades away from each other. That there is rape and there are sunsets. Sociopaths and my son’s laughter. Same world. Fucking hell. Beyond grappling with that, is the pleading question of what do I DO? What does anybody do? How can you heal a soul that’s been fragmented? How do we heal a culture? The experts can, and have written volumes on these topics. But I’m also starting to think we each have our unique answer. To quote a woman I love, the place where ‘our deep gladness meets the world’s great need’ really resonates with me. As absolutely bizarre as it may sound on a date or in a conversation with my grandma, this project, my paintings of women’s pussies, answers that call. To get to witness a woman, in her most vulnerable, hold space for her story, and create a thing of beauty from all of that, is such an extraordinary honor and adventure for me. The fact that it can also be deeply healing for them, and impactful to the people who see it, is something I’m deeply grateful for.

I don’t think I fully understood the power of beauty until I saw those colors stand up against those words that day. I have known that what I do can be very potent, and have experienced beauty as a form of nourishment in my own life, but I didn’t get that beauty could be an agent of activism until that moment. It was not trivial or superficial or un-essential as we often categorize beautiful things. It was fierce. It was essential. More than that, it was who she was, at the core of her, and it was healing. This was just the beginning of her painting and our process together, but already it has showed me so much and I am so grateful. Grateful for the lessons, grateful for her trust, grateful that whatever it was that came into me to make me do this project did.

I have been brought to my knees time and time again with this project. It has broken me apart and remade me, each painting taking me deeper than the one before. It has been wild, intricate, and messy stuff. But each time I find myself on my knees I look down and find a paintbrush in my hands and more often than not will look up to find a woman who is choosing to trust me with her life. And I could not be more grateful than to sit with her, and make a thing of beauty.

-RANIER

“I am honored to know Ranier Wood, who makes such beautiful, wild, bold, powerful paintings. Witnessing women in all their layers, she paints their rich life stories, in order to heal & allow women to reclaim their bodies, their power and their voices. I believe it is important and much-needed work and wholeheartedly support her project. And Ranier, sister, goddess, I just have to say, I so love the phrase you’ve coined, ‪#‎vivalavulva‬. Indeed. YES, yes and yes.”

— Johanna Silva

Story of S

This woman was a friend who originally came to me to talk about balancing her hormones. I ended up asking her about sexual abuse and she confessed having spent a good six months in the rape crisis center ('I'm alive because of them' she told me). At this point I brought her into my studio and told her about my art and the process I do. Offering it as (free) service if she felt it would help...

We ended up working together late into the night about a week later. There was whisky, there were tears, there was laughter, and there was story telling. Her story was rough. Really rough. She wrote all over the canvas first in gold ink- starting with a family tree (the abuse went generations back), and evolving to things she had felt, things she wanted to say, etc. With that foundation laid, I then worked on her painting for three days straight. It was intense, dark, beautiful stuff. Almost puked three times just from whatever it was coming from her through me. She brought in sacred items to help anchor the space while I painted and we both felt a huge relief when it was done. At one point I felt it could either be covered in white or swamped in black. Held my breath a day and waited for the shift in her to be clear. In the end the white won, but as with her, there were layers and layers to the story. Dark, brilliant, bloody, triumphant. *exhale*

“This is my girl Ranier Wood when her brain melts and intuition emerges. If you love pussy and you adore artists and you have a hankering to support artists with your cha-ching, this may be just the thing to satiate your appetite.”

— Sadaf Rassoul Cameron

Story of CS- as told in her words

The following post written by C.S.

This is me. Well one expression of probably about 17. And the extraordinary being who created this painting is my dear friend Ranier Wood. Artist. Angel. Supermodel. Activist.

After paint-sitting since last December, about a month ago, I decided I wanted to own her and this part of myself. My erotic power.

Anxiety consumed me. Imposed ridiculous pressure on myself. I fretted over telling Ranier. Why? Because I also wanted to use her campaign as a platform to tell my family about it and ask for their love, support and monetary contribution as birthday presents in owning this part of myself.

The other day my husband and I dined in a local Mexican restaurant. I looked up and noticed a framed photo of a delicate light-infused papery tomatillo husk. It bore an uncanny resemblance to the golden seed pod/caged wings of a painting in my dining room. After dinner, I took a photograph of it amused by the literal sign from the universe that I am of this earth and it is safe to be me.

We walked about half a block and we heard someone running towards us. We thought we left something in the restaurant. A man approached us and asked if he could take a photograph of us. Surprisingly, we simultaneously posed for this stranger as he stated, ‘Don’t worry I won’t post this on the internet.’ Laughing, I inquired why he felt the urge to capture us. ‘Honestly’ he said, ‘you two are good looking and I want to remember it.’

I mention that scenario because I spent most of my life hiding, being invisible, feeling unworthy, less than, and uncomfortable in my own skin. For the past three years, I have been diving deep within myself releasing shame and trauma, cycling through various iterations of death and rebirth, dancing with my darkness and light, and seeing my beauty and learning to own my divine worth. And now I am seen and heard.

Last year, I suffered multiple ruptures. First a car crash. Then three successive sprained ankles. Topped it off with a compressed spine from dropping a piece of furniture on my head. All that happened as a result of denying my self-expression and self-acceptance.

Ranier’s powerful work has been instrumental in my evolution. Cellularly changed me. Literally.

Did you notice the heart in the painting? This past summer, after a variety show I created and performed in, a tiny heart-shaped beauty mark emerged next to my fading birthmark on my thigh.

And if you look just to the right of the heart in the painting, there is a figure with arms outstretched on a stage in front of a crowd. That’s what I always imagined when I looked at the painting. Because my deepest longing was to be a dancer.

And now I am.

The incredible JiJi Wind captured it best when I received my applause. In her photograph, it looks like I am flying.

Thank you for seeing me".

TOO MUCH. The story of G

I was sitting at a breakfast table in a trendy restaurant in Denver with two of my best friends, when the waitress came over with a glass of whisky and handed it to me. No no, I did not order whisky at 11am on a sunday I told her. "It's from him." She gestured to the cute guy with sparkly green eyes at the table next to us.

Oh.

Fast forward to the drive home with my friend after we spent some of the afternoon with Mr Green Eyes and one of his friends. "So? What did you think?" she asks me.

"I'm too much for him." I reply without a second thought.

"Huh." She says, looking at me, "That kinda seems like your thing, yeah?" (have I mentioned that I have the most amazing, hilarious, and insightful friends? Because I do. And Im pretty sure they are the reason my life is so good and/or I have never ended up in jail... Anyway, I digress.).

When I got back to town, and back into my studio, I started in on the background of what I was calling 'the blood orange pussy', a painting I was doing of a gorgeous friend of mine. I started with some layered colors. Ack. Horrible. Too much. I blotted it. Then I tried gold leaf. Oh dear god. What was I thinking. You can't paint over that shit. I felt nauseous. I took a break.

One of the things that I have learned in these paintings is that I will very likely think I've lost 'it' (whatever 'it' is) at some point along the way, and that I have to just keep trusting myself and 'just keep swimming' (or, painting). Often, really more often than one could call coincidence, the horribly ugly thing I've just done will turn into the best part of the painting. This has been wildly healing to watch, again and again. I seem to learn this with every painting I do. And then I forget, and have to learn it again.

It was at this point in the painting, when I started the gold leaf and was almost puking over how 'too much' it was that I sent her (the subject) a text saying this painting will either be a Too Much Disaster or a masterpiece. And most likely that judgement will be entirely dependent on the viewer.

I wrote that and it was like an epiphany. All my life I have felt like too much. Too loud, too smart, too opinionated, too lucky, too white, too colorful, too goofy, too strong, too weird, too everything. Just too much. Mr. Green Eyes? Totally lovely normal dude. But him being able to handle all of my bigness, and curiosity, and and and? Just seemed impossible. I mean, trying to imagine having a conversation with him about how somehow I can feel into a woman's soul when I paint her pussy? Umm... Maybe i save that for the third date...?

But looking at my painting in all its flash and complexity changed something in me. It made me wonder, What if I just was who I was, and there will be people who think its extraordinary and people who don't see that as much, but either way it wasn't personal, and either way, I was inherently beautiful? Whoa. Taken further, what if my too much-ness was actually what was going to 'bring me gold'? It would stand to reason that the ways in which you are unique are the ways in which you ultimately will stand out. And really, don't you need to be a little more of something if you are going to rise above average in anything? Huh. Wow. Yes please.

The next day the subject (who had yet to see any of the painting) sent me a picture of a japanese bowl where the cracks had been filled with gold saying how she had printed this out a few days prior and it was inspiring to her. I laughed out loud. And then sent her a few pictures of her pussy with its own gold filled cracks.

In the end, I love this painting. I love it for its aesthetics but also for what it (and she) taught me and now represents. Mr. Green Eyes? Never saw him again (he lives 6 hours away from me). Do I still feel bad for possibly being not the right woman for him? No. Is there a chance that really he was just not right for me? Very possibly. Either way, it doesn't really matter. What matters is that I am complex and intricate and wild and that is A-ok. More than that, who I am is beautiful and just the right amount of too much. Excuse me while I loosen my pants and exhale... ahhhh.

God I love this work. SO grateful for the journey it takes me on. Every time. Viva la Too Much people. I think your too much is gorgeous, personally... ;)

xo

R AMIEL

A corner section of the final piece in all its too much-ness glory

A being beyond gender- Story of CD

This one is a special one to me.

This painting is of a beloved friend who is a lesbian and who has generally identified more with the masculine than the feminine. She is a wildly intuitive spiritual being, and one of those people who feels made of incredible light. When she came in to do the Witnessing the studio became so potent it was almost pulsing. The first sketch came out black. First layer of her relationship to this part of herself. The second sketch was the sweetest, most playful colorful image and the first one I'd ever done in teal and blue. Her inner self. So wonderful a thing to behold. She told me that after the Witnessing was the first time in her life she had felt comfortable in female form. Whoa. So amazing.

A little while later when I went to do her canvas painting it started with white on white. I kept being reminded, as I hunched over her painting on the floor, of monks kneeling over sand mandalas. I kept following the painting's cues like I always do (tiny step by tiny step) and kept waiting for it to turn into a pussy, or something that looked more literally like one but... it never did. It stayed spirit in a way. More mandala than vulva. Part way through the painting she moved to a big city and I found myself scribbling grey all around the edges. She said later when she saw it that that was exactly how she felt there-- that she was having to work hard to stay bright amidst all the grey and chaos. I got to see with this painting how a person's true essence knows no gender or physical limitation or boundary, and how ultimately this project is about people more than anything else-- who we are at our core and what we are going through. Most of all, how self acceptance and deep self-reverence are life changing and healing acts of activism and unspeakably powerful and needed.

What is a Reclamation?

I few days ago I put it out there that I am taking on three women who would like to do Reclamation Works to heal traumas they held. Within minutes of posting responses started pouring in. Women and their stories started filling my inbox. It was at once honoring and devastating. We always hear the statistics of how many children are maltreated (1 in 10) or sexually abused (1 in 16) or how often women are raped in America (every 2minutes), but to see these numbers played out in your own friends group is pretty brutal. Especially considering that many of my friends didn't even see the post.

Ack.

I soaked this in. I responded to my friends. I doubled my open spots. And felt the battle cry inside me roar. This work is a wild thing to do (makes for a helluva first date conversation) and I am often approached by people who love the look of my work but are wishing it had a different subject matter. For whatever reason, they are not currently desiring a huge vulva for their dining room (no idea why not ;). In fact, some of the responses I got were inquiries of this nature; people hoping that by Reclamation Work, I meant I was doing something (anything) else. A nude? A landscape? Even just pure abstract?

I would love to do nudes. I'm sure someday I will. And I'm sure they will be very pretty. And coordinate well with people's couches. The trick is, if I have only 5 or 10 hours to paint in a week, and I have the choice to either witness a woman, help heal her deepest traumas and give witness to her soul, and take that wild journey, or do something 'pretty'… Well? I am going to go with option A for a hundred, Alex. It is such an extraordinary honor to get to do this work with people. To get to see past the layers of personality and superficial veneers we usually show each other and instead dive right in to the heart of who they are, what they've been through, and what they want… It's some heavy (and humbling) magic.

So the day I figure out how to make a nude or a landscape into that wild of an adventure and make that big of an impact on someone's life, I will paint them late into the night. And make millions. ;) But for now, I will just have to stick with pussies. And keep doing the only work I know how to do, woman by woman, to heal this hurting planet.

So. What is a Reclamation work? Women come to me to be painted for all sorts of reasons (pre-wedding, post-divorce, curiosity, desire to know themselves etc) but the reclamation works are specific to women who want to reclaim themselves from a particular (or series or particular) traumatic event. The first one I did (that gave birth to this whole process), was with a woman from india whose mother was a prostitute. I had her write her story out on thick paper and then painted her pussy over it. It was intense. And beautiful. Another, was with a woman who had been raped three times and molested since she was 6. With her, I stretched a huge canvas and had her write all over it (everything from "get your fucking hands off me" to "I am worthy") while I held space. I think I painted her over that while we talked about what she was releasing and who she was becoming. It was fucking intense. And changed her life.

Each one is different (just as each woman and her story are different), but the common theme with Reclamation Works is the intention of release and healing through the artwork. The women are seen, their story is heard, and we go back to the scene of the crime, and reclaim her in beauty. Powerful stuff. I usually do these for free (and/or sell the works and donate a chunk of the proceeds) and they tend to be a fairly intensive process for me, so I only offer a few every so often. For the upcoming show I will be offering 6. If you would like to be one of them please let me know. If you would like to help make this possible for more women please donate, purchase a work, or contact me for other ways to help. It takes a village, people. And it heals the village.

xo

R AMIEL

The outcome of one of the above stories.

From Bound to Celestial- Story of C

The subject is actually a (fitness) client of mine and is someone who has been through a lot of trauma. When we did the Witnessing sketchings both paintings that came out had empty white space where the pussy was. I asked if she had ever been present in her pussy. She said only with herself. She has NEVER told a man how gently she needs it and often thinks about her taxes etc when having sex (for example). She has had four marriages and currently lives alone.

The painting was physically uncomfortable to paint. It started out with the white lines that made me feel like her pussy was bound. Ugh. Then some sweet pink and then I started this gold stuff that ended up looking like a boot print, like she had been stomped on. Yeesh. I had to take a break.
I started feeling like I'd really lost my knack and didn't know what the fuck I was doing (this happens a lot when I paint, but was particularly acute this time). But I've done enough of these now to know to just keep painting (and breathing) and trust the process.
In the end it became this wild ethereal cosmic thing. I also realized talking to her later that the process mirrored parts her life story. For example, when she was young, a doctor had made her undergo a traumatic (and unnecessary) vaginal surgery (thus the bound stitching lines), and later when she started to develop her sexuality and femininity it was stomped down, (thus the boot). Wild how this work works.

When I came to the end I sat looking at it for a long time. I didn't know if it's 'good' or not but decided it didn't really matter. What matters is that a woman reclaimed a part of herself long neglected and was truly seen. And I got to be there for it. Whoa.

Story of M

I did this one a while back and it started very visceral and literal and pretty and proper. Just a pink pussy and gold dots. Then I was stuck. I couldn't move forward. So, the piece stayed in my studio for a few months. At that time, my studio doubled as the garage of my house. One day I came home and my child had smeared yellow paint up the side of it. Gah!

[side note this led to one of my favorite all time stories which was the consequential conversation relayed to me a few days later by his preschool teacher Aurora Rose Hvidsten, who praise the serendipitous overlords of a small town, is my childhood friend!. The conversation went something like this:

O- "Hey aurora, do you know what I did? I put paint on my mamas painting... And she got really upset."
A- "Oh?"
O- "Yeah... Do you know what she paints?"
A- "What's that?"
O- "She paints vulvas... But not furry ones."]

Anyways, I digress. Not long after this incident I felt pulled back into the painting again and the background bloomed... Unbeknownst to me the subject was, at that moment, starting an Outrageousness Challenge wherein every day she did something outrageous and let herself play and be seen. This was part of her greater work of self acceptance and self love. As she expanded within herself her painting expanded. It got softer and more feminine... more ready to be seen. Really sweet nourishing beautiful stuff. Total joy to be a part of.

The google image search that kicked me out of the closet... A few words on FGM

A couple months ago I was doing a google image search trying to find an medical illustration that dated pre-'discovery' of the clitoris for a painting I wanted to do. As these things tend to do one image led to another and before I knew it I was eyeballs deep in a subject that I have tried to keep out of my reality for long time...

The subject of female genital mutilation.

Like the details of people who murder babies, and so many of the other truly awful senseless tragedies that occur in our world, female genital mutilation (FGM), is one of those things I have always known about but really would rather have just not talked about. However, this time, face to face with image after image of horrible horrible things- mothers taking razor blades to toddler girls, blood everywhere, babies screaming- I didn't have a choice but to look this reality in the eye. According to the World Health Organization, more than 125 million girls and women alive today have been cut in the 29 countries in Africa and The Middle East where FGM is concentrated (source). An estimated 3 million are at risk of having their pussies cut each year.

yikes.

At this point, there was no turning back and so I dove deeper. I then learned that there are three different 'styles' of FGM- from type I in which some or all of the girl's clitoris is removed to type IV in which all or most of the external genitalia are removed and the girl is sewn shut with the exception of a small hole for urine (source).

Holy fucking shit.

In Somalia, 63% of the girls who underwent FGM (a whopping 98% of the female population) had their genitals almost completely sewn shut. Almost scarier still, in Guinea, where FGM has been done to 96% of the female population, only 19% of the women think FGM should stop as opposed to 42% of the boys and men (source).

What the WHAT?!

So I am sitting there, staring at the computer screen, looking at these images, with tears streaming down my face, and I realize that I no longer have the right to be 'shy' about this project. The goal of Vulveré is to change the fabric of our global culture as it relates to women and to the vulnerable wild parts in all of us. Looking at a picture of a baby girl laying in a pool of blood, my embarrassment over the fact that I paint vulvas vanished and was replaced with fierce determination. It was time to get over myself and take this project into the world. It is no longer about me (and honestly, it never really was). It is about who we are as a race and how we are going to choose to go forward in this world.

Being embarrassed or ashamed of our feminine selves has not gotten us very far. I would advocate it has actually gotten us into some pretty bad situations. A country in our world in which 98% of the girls have had their genitals cut off is a bad situation.

The trick here is that we are talking about deep cultural and traditional beliefs; things no one likes to have challenged. Cultural myths and practices and beliefs are the corner stone of how we, as a species, deal with the fact that we have no real provable idea as to why we are here and what happens later. Attack someone's beliefs from the outside and they often will only cling to them more tightly. It's human nature.

So rather than fight against FGM directly, I would advocate a celebration of the opposite. It is my fervent prayer that I can somehow create an experience of reverence with my art that celebrates women. I pray that this reverent celebration weave it's way into our global culture like a thin string of hope that cannot be killed. If you are reading this, I challenge you, to look at the dark and wild and feminine parts of yourself (regardless of your sex) and celebrate them. Love them. For only you can change your world, and it starts in us. It's up to us.

xo,

Ranier AMIEL