She Took Hold: The Courage to Choose

Technique & Style

Abstract, Mixed media

Figures

Eve

Notes

Artist statement: "Eve is not merely the first woman, but the first to choose -to act in the face of contradiction, to step beyond obedience into knowledge, and to initiate the human experience through embodiment. Her choice is honored and yet perpetually burdened: without it, humankind would not exist; because of it, she is blamed for our suffering. This work considers Eve not as a cautionary figure, but as a threshold. The central reaching gilded hand represents Eve’s decisive act -the moment when knowledge becomes unavoidable. She grasps the serpent not in fear, but in restraint, acknowledging that wisdom, once taken, cannot be undone. Surrounding gilded hands symbolize her descendants, all of humankind, inheritors of Eve’s choice. Shed snakeskin speaks to transformation without erasure. Tatting patterns on wasp paper reflects fragile architectures of labor and defense. Lace, gilded botanicals, and entheogenic datura reference veiling, altered consciousness, and sacred knowledge both feared and revered. In the temple narrative, Eve learns through experience rather than instruction. This assemblage honors her courage -not as rebellion, but as collaboration with creation. Eve’s legacy is not the Fall, but the permission to choose, to suffer, to create, and to endure."

Exhibition History:

• “Brave Like Eve,” Certain Women Art Show, January 16 – March 27, 2026

Church Name

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints