Chaos in the Blue, 2024, etching and aquatint on printmaking paper, 9 x 14 inches

Chaos in the Blue is a print made from an etching and aquatint I made on a copper plate of me and my sister. The inspiration was from a photo my mother took of me and my sister on Christmas morning of 2012, about a month after we moved to Connecticut from New Jersey. I was 8 years old, my sister was 12 years old. While creating this piece I was drawn to remember that precious memory of my sister and I and our close relationship to one another. I also was able to remember the state of my family at that time and how we were essentially homeless and living with my grandma and great-grandma in their senior living apartment. The time period was a rough patch for my family and I, and the turmoil we were feeling that day with my father’s alcoholism. That Christmas was pure white as snow covered every area of sight. I wanted the print to be blue and show the changes I made in the aquatint process. The print, however, ended up being, from what I thought at first was too much blue, a happy accident. An accident that displays the state of my world at that time, chaos during a blue Christmas.