It feels auspicious to be going live with my website store and my first offering of Limited Edition Fine Art Prints on the Summer Solstice. The theme of this group of prints:
#MeToo: Facing the Truth is Liberation.
Fine Art Prints from Karen Nagano’s #MeToo series.
Evocative, provocative, creative images about sexual harm and its effects.
Read about the genesis of this body of work here. Or hop on over to the store, see the images first and come on back to read their history.
Either way, I’m honored by your presence. My wish for you is that owning a piece of my #MeToo Art gives you the freedom, release, healing and transformation that comes with accepting and embracing the Truth.
#MeToo
Me too! Me too! Me too. The words resound globally. So sad. So tragic. So heart wrenching. So true. So many. And, me too. Really, actually. When I was a child. By someone I was pushed to trust. Someone I didn’t like, whom I shrank away from. Whom I avoided.
But the adults, hell bent on socializing me into an acceptable feminine norm urged, cajoled and browbeat me to “polite” interactions, hugs, engagement. Even now I can feel the prickling sensation of alarm that stirred me to run away, but fearing the reprimands and scoldings, I stayed. I allowed. Until those socially adaptive adults disappeared and the worst happened. A world shattered.
His final words to me: “If you tell, I will kill you.” I believed him. I was three.
#MeToo.
Am now feeling deep gratitude to be in this time and place to be able to offer Fine Art Prints from my #MeToo series, a body of work in mixed mediums that express the psychic, emotional effects of sexual harm and its environment. Even though some of the pieces, which I then called “Fractured Figures” sold and were acclaimed, the rejection and silencing from my family shattered me on yet another level. I could not manage to sustain that level of vulnerability then. I withdrew the work and went on to other themes.
My affection for the #MeToo “Fractured Figures,” never waned however. From the moment I picked up the stylus and watched the shattered figures emerge from its tip, a feeling of love and wonder and affection flowed through me. I watched the images emerge through my own hand and heart and felt so much compassion for the strange broken, wounded figures. The beauty, the playfulness, the spaciousness delighted me. For the first time since the moment of sexual abuse, I felt my wholeness and knew I was okay.
Allowing the truth to emerge whole and unadulterated, standing in the moment without flinching. Embracing it with compassion. Connecting with that part of ones self that is bigger than the parts, bigger than the event, bigger than the threat, the denials, the cover-ups, the lies. Bigger than the shattering and the remaining wounds. That is what creating these works gave me and which I share with you. These works are about the violence and destruction, yes. More importantly, they are about our creative power to claim our wholeness, the frightening beauty of Truth and the gift that Truth gives us to live Whole and Authentically without fear.
Gratitude beyond words floods my heart for all the courageous, loving women who have come forward as the torchbearers of #MeToo. Courage, like fear, is contagious. Unlike fear, it is the contagion of wholeness, health and well-being. From these incredible women I have caught “Courage” and once again offer my #MeToo “Fractured Figures” to the world. This time I’m not retreating.
I bow to the loving, brilliant, beautiful people who have ushered me out of a family culture of denial and silencing and given me a new family of Truthfulness, empowerment, acceptance and abiding Love. It is from this new culture, the greater culture at large and the culture of my current family and friends, that I am able to stand Whole, Free and Strong with the brave women who have paved the way.
#MeToo.
Enjoy the Truth. The Freedom. The Power. The Joy. The Love. We are all bigger than we know.
Do the images resonate?
What is your experience of them? Do you feel the freedom,
the joy of creation behind the images of pain and distress?
Can you sense the largeness of that which creates?
Do you have a story you’d like to share?
Would love to hear from you.