Lizzie Wortham

Painting is a path towards consciousness. My paintings have traced my own, my attention blurring and focusing with the swelling of my own heart. I watched my children, remembering crying, remembering innocent desire, now longing for wonder. As my children grew I gathered up angst and stitched defiance with threads of empathy, growing my consciousness with each image. 

Now my children are grown and my wandering angus has turned to my own body. The silver trout on the floor turning into a woman or maybe vice versa. I took off my fish pants and my fish shirt to feel the hard ground beneath my feet. Zeus pulling Persephone out of the water, the shock of the cold air on my body, the blade of internal masculinity slapping me awake from the deep water of femininity. Was I Eve or Adam when I had that convo with the serpent? Both?

My animal body connects with the forest I live in. Walking barefoot on the cold mud of springtime drops me in. There are few days that I don’t commune with the other souls of my forest. My connection deepens as I age. Did Sadhbh really want the form of a woman? Was she trapped inside the castle? Or trapped inside Doe? Vulnerability, fear, protection are both emotional and physical realities. The evil wizard and the prince can be the same man inside us.