A LETTER TO WOMEN ARTISTS THROUGHOUT HISTORY

Self Portrait

36" x 48"

Oil on canvas

by

Sarah Beth Banning

I'm sorry. 

I know your heart ache. 

I know the yearning with a fire that rages inside.
The longing to experience the beauty in the stars. 
I know the desire that can not be quenched by a raging river. 

I know the soul of an artist.

You looked upon the vastness of the sea but it's mass could never fill the aching gulf which was in your heart.

Generation after generation you bore the weight of the world. 
You gave life again and again.
You bore it unendingly.
 All the pain, all the sorrow, all the love, all the joy.

You were all daughters.
Some of you were mothers.

and some, Artists.
Forever undiscovered.

I'm sorry. 

I'm sorry no one saw how bright your light could shine.
Blazing like a thousand suns from your passionate heart.

You did what you could. 
You did what you had to do to survive. 

I know. I have done this too.

You did your duty.
With glad hearts.
Obedient hearts.
Raging hearts with nowhere to go.

You kept the great sorrow buried but it was always there.
Suffocating.

Expectations of a millennia come at a cost.