The Queen of Cups series is an ode to Richmond, VA, and the last eight years.
In 2015, I moved back here to my hometown after years of living away. My husband and I bought a house in Church Hill, had a daughter, and made a home for ourselves.
And now we think it's time for a change for our family. Our beloved New Orleans beckons us back. As we prepare to move, I have been overwhelmed by the feelings that have come up for me.
I spent the past five months exploring these feelings. I journaled till my hand hurt, worked with two different therapists, drunkenly cried with my girlfriends, and (of course) made art.
But how do you capture visually what a time and place has meant to you? Richmond holds so much history, tradition, and symbolism for me personally.
Looking around my neighborhood, a color palette emerged: blue-gray like my front porch steps, pale burnt sienna like the brick facades, and smokey yellow-green like the pollen covering our cars.
Then I picked out a group of traditional, ornate gold frames and used the frames to inspire my compositions.
I made two initial pieces, “Church Hill 1” and “Church Hill 2,” with realistic drawings of architectural elements from my neighborhood: the decorative trim on my front porch and the window of a church steeple.
I intended to continue this architecture theme into the rest of the series, but something else emerged as I worked further. Richmond is more than a physical place for me.
Sure, this is the place where I bought my first house. But this is also the place where I’ve made some of the closest friends I’ve ever known, where I gave birth to my daughter, where I braved the pandemic with my husband, and where I created new bonds with my parents.
And through all of this, I grew and changed as a woman. I am not the same person who moved here, mostly out of fear, in 2015. I am more confident, I trust my own intuition, and I am more intentional about how I spend my time.
To show what Richmond has meant to me, I needed to be less literal. I needed to convey Queen of Cups energy. In Tarot, the Queen of Cups “channels of feelings, emotions, dreams and visions. She is the Muse and the Enchantress.” (Tarot for Yourself, by Mary K. Greer)
I kept my original color palette, but let go of the architectural elements. Using lots of water, I built layer upon layer of transparent, fluid paint. I pushed and pulled and threw the paint to express forward movement, inspiration, and gratitude. After I paired each piece with their frames, I added intentional marks with pencil and oil pastels to connect the layers beneath with the surrounding frame.
Finally, to name the series, I laid all the pieces out on the living room floor and pulled out my tarot deck. I matched each piece with a card from the suit of cups. Then I pulled words from the cards’ meanings to name each piece.
I named the largest piece after the Queen of Cups herself. “Trust” shows confidence and contemplation. The Queen of Cups trusts her own intuition. She looks inward for truth.
The Queen of Cups series is a memorial to my time here and a physical expression of what I’ve learned and who I’ve become while living here the last eight years.
