In Women Who Run With the Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estés retells the tale of the Skeleton Woman, exploring its meaning as a metaphor for love and transformation. The passage “The Sleep of Trust” speaks to the vulnerability inherent in surrender. In sleep, we relinquish control and allow ourselves to become vulnerable. Love asks something similar of us: a willingness to surrender and allow the experience to change us.

I began this charcoal drawing May, working counterclockwise. Returning to it months later and reconnecting the marks I had left behind became a literal act of closing a circle.

For me, the work is often less about the external image than the internal experience of creating it, and the possibility of allowing that experience to become transformative. This creates a space where vulnerability and power can coexist.

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