Living Here With Chaos and Creation
Artist Statement: about Chaos being an “Outline of the Storm”
This painting began in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and found its resolution twenty years later, in August 2025. It is not just a work of art—it is a witness. A chalk outline of chaos. A visual echo of disaster. A map of what I saw, what I ran from, and what I ultimately chose to face.
I evacuated Katrina and survived the flood. Then came Hurricane Rita, and with it, a tornado that destroyed the Chapel of Memories. I was just standing across the street when the tornado dropped from the sky. There were no sirens. No warning. I ran and hid. I didn’t live in the wreckage—but I carried it. This painting is how I documented the aftermath. Not to organize it. Not to fix it. But to accept it as it is.
The shapes in this piece—like fallen pick-up sticks—represent trauma, displacement, and the randomness of survival. They are scattered, but not meaningless. They are chaotic, but not hopeless. They are the people, the memories, the moments that fell—but were never forgotten.
This is not a funeral for chaos. It’s a release. A declaration that I no longer have to live inside the storm to honor what it taught me. I don’t have to hide. I don’t have to reenact. I can witness. I can name. I can move forward.
It was like reliving the communication breakdown of Katrina all over again—two storms, two weeks apart, and no plan that worked. Even in 2025, histories continue to repeat. The real disaster isn’t always the storm—it’s the silence that follows. The failure to communicate. The failure to implement. The failure to listen.
It took me twenty years to finish this image. And in doing so, I found something I didn’t expect: peace. Not because the chaos disappeared—but because I stopped trying to fight it. I let it speak. And now, I speak back.