Life Sentence
For most of our lives we exist in a “borderland,” tentatively peering over the border’s edge, relegated to the sidelines, or simply afraid of a leap into the unknown. In Borderlands/La Frontera, Gloria Anzaldua writes, “A border is a dividing line, a narrow strip along a step edge. A borderland is a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary. It is in a constant state of transition. The prohibited and forbidden are its inhabitants.”
Here, a woman is contained within an environment with the ghosts of her memories and private thoughts. She is peering out from a window that represents the unnatural boundary between her world and the vast world beyond.
Charcoal and mixed media.