Rebecca Barra​-Multimedia Artist  @RebeccaBarra

My Translating For Trees series was at Mirus Gallery in Denver 2020 

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My newest piece Ethereal is a depiction of my harrowing journey through healing and not apologizing or hiding my trauma. It is a representation of my experience of when my mom went missing over 3 years ago. During the opening, I learned how much my story impacts others. Many people at the opening were moved  to the point of sharing tears and hugs and encouraged me to keep sharing with the public. This experience of connecting with strangers in this intimate, vulnerable way convinced me that sharing my story is important for my own and others’ healing.

 

See the piece above and read a description below that I wrote on the back, explaining how it visually depicts what I experienced.

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On the top of Ethereal, there is a woman. At first glance it seems her chest is cut open, raw, and exposed, as if some major surgery is taking place down her entire torso. In fact, the most life-changing surgery of her soul is occurring. She believes she is dying. How could she survive this tragic loss?

 

My mom was missing for a year and the pain was so immense that it eventually made me invincible, because I knew that no pain would ever come close. So actually, the chest cut became my child-like wonder emerging from the pain.

 

Then, my tiger started to grow below. Fierce determination and increasingly strong intuition guided me to leave NY and move to CO.

 

While she was missing, my birthday came. All day, I said “Mom it’s ok, I need to know, I want to know, I love youUu!” The next day, a homeless man crawled in a basement window of an abandoned house and found my mom’s body. I died too, but then it became a re-birth.

 

The bottom section represents me becoming all the beings I needed and making my pain my power. Becoming my own hero, my own dragon, my own lion. I feel people carry around trauma and the shame of their trauma. Your trauma doesn’t make you traumatic! You aren’t alone and you can be your own hero. You’re not less than anyone because of it.

 

The very bottom character, I call my Miyagi, which is an inner knowing, God, the universe, your compass—It’s hard to hear it sometimes but always trust it when you do. And always do what sets your soUl on fire!!