Ink and gouache on stretched canvas.

This is a painting of women composed in three groupings: three defined figures in the foreground, a midground flurry of figures in motion, and figures on a buoy connecting to figures on a ship. The piece was inspired by the 250th anniversary reading of the Declaration of Independence in downtown Newburyport, and by the question of who has been included in that promise and kept working toward it in the 250 years since. There are enough figures drawn to span the generations of women since the Declaration of Independence was written. The poses draw on nautical paintings by Winslow Homer and Edward Hopper, while the ink and color language comes from contemporary figurative painters Jordan Casteel and Emma Kohlmann. Local details are woven throughout; you may notice Federal-style brick, Plum Island waters and salt marshes, beach roses and juvenile fallfish. The gibbous moon represents that we are still growing. I hope viewers notice the three foreground women's different relationships to time: past, present, and future. May we all see our own place among the women behind them, still working toward justice, peace, and community.