Wherever I go
The universe is with me
Leading me
Protecting me
Blessing me
Having fun with me
Comforting me
Teaching me
Favoring me
Uplifting and encouraging me
Supporting me
Wherever I go
God is with me
Collage on watercolor paper made by Heather Polk with found pieces. “Hidden Figures #2” 2022
Take up space.
Unapologetically.
Undeniably.
No shrinking allowed.
Own your brilliance and beauty.
Try as they may to ignore your presence,
Your passion will radiate.
Ignore the false labels and accusations.
Your success is the true narrative.
Bloom any way.
Bloom in a way that is uniquely you.
Always and in all ways.
Collage by Heather Polk made with found pieces and acrylic paint on watercolor paper. “Hidden Figures #2” 2022
“you are not
your sisters keeper
you are
your sister”
Excerpt from Lucille Clifton’s
The Message From The Ones
Identity and responsibility emerge as themes woven in some critiques of these lines from Lucile Clifton’s poem.
As the oldest sister, I have long leaned into the role of responsibility that comes with being “big sister.” Yet, in this current season of unlearning and creating space for what is best for me, I find myself releasing the weight of that title - choosing instead to just be their sister.
A respecter of boundaries.
A fixer of nothing.
Saying “no” comfortably without guilt.
Rejecting other people’s expectations.
Minding my business.
Connecting on shared interests.
Listening intently without agenda.
Daydreaming of love.
Embracing peace.
Apologizing because I’m often wrong.
Exuding a genuine warmth.
Forcing nothing.
Allowing what is in alignment.
Napping and resting.
Celebrating the wins.
Honoring my truths.
Accepting things as there are.
Courageously pursuing justice.
Happily creating art.
Honoring my inner voice.
Controlling no one.
Seeking truth relentlessly.
Thinking out loud.
Agonizing over fewer things.
Appreciating that the ripple is not a “little thing.”
Looking for my miracles everyday.
Betting on us.
Winning and succeeding together.
Taking care of myself first.
Is this what they mean when they say “doing all the things”? These things resonate with me and I will honor them in how I live as sister daily.
“Hidden Figure #1” - 2022 - by Heather Polk, assembled found images
Your path in life is yours alone. For some it’s a formula; for others, a feeling. The truth lies somewhere in between.
Live authentically. Know your purpose. Care for yourself. Build relationships with intention. Your intuition is your compass- trust it!
Too many dreams have died under the weight of other people’s opinions. Stay the course through the inevitable twists, turns, doubts, and keep your hope.
Your best path always requires belief in what you cannot yet see. Hold onto your vision and trust God is working everything for your good. Your path unfolds as you move towards what you believe.
Artwork: “I Am On The Best Path For Myself”
2022
Assembled found images
“You are your best thing…”
-Toni Morrison, Beloved
Our sense of value does not come from others, our jobs, or even our closest relationships. It comes from within - from our own inherent self worth.
So where do self-worth and creativity intersect? For me, creativity has always been a bridge between emotions and curiosity - a way to pour curiosity, joy, and pain on to paper or canvas. Over the decades, art making and writing have become forms of personal liberation, granting me the freedom to explore and make sense of my inner world and what I observe in the world around me.
Whether through figurative collages that affirm “Black is Beautiful” or abstract works that delve into dreamlike ambiguity, my creativity continues to evolve as a practice of expression and curiosity. Affirming myself does not diminish others; rather it honors my voice, my lived experiences, my value, my talents, my right to exist and take up space. I matter - and I have contributions to make where I can serve.
May we all come to recognize that we are our best thing. Create space for yourself. Listen to your intuition. Honor your inner voice. Cultivate your gifts. The world needs only what you can create!
“You Are Your Best Thing”
2020
Collaged my from found images.
Your thoughts become your reality.
It requires intentionality to stay focused in today’s hyper distracting world. Disciplined action is required to achieve your goals.
“And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Meditate on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.” Philippians 4:8 NLT
Block out or distance yourself from that which does not serve your highest and best.
Meditate, create, & elevate.
Artwork:
Mediation Is Realization
2020
Give her flowers.
Choose fragrant, colorful, and beautiful bouquets that stoke all of her senses.
Give them with a pure heart, with a desire to tug at her emotions, and affirm your commitment. May your bouquet whisper “I love you” with pretty petals and fragrance.
She is your flower. Nurture your garden and she will continually bloom.
Artwork:
“Give Her Flowers”
2019
Belief.
Faith.
The substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen.
Whatcha believin’ God for? Whatcha hopin’ to maintain a mustard seed size of faith for?
Don’t stop believing. Don’t get lost in the waves and movement of the world around you.
Don’t abandon your faith.
Look for your miracles everyday. Trust God to strengthen you, keep you encouraged and supply whatever is required to walk on that water.
God doesn’t need your help, just your faith. Keep walking, don’t stop, He has your back.
Artwork:
“Lost In The Waves”
2022
12in x 9in
Abstract collage on watercolor paper
What - (fill in the blank)
Are we (you, me, and/or everyone else)
Afraid (fearing, scared to contemplate)
Of (to be, to become, to do)
?
Take up space and go forward shedding your fear with every step. Develop the confidence as you play, act, do, dream, practice, and become. Becoming is a process…. They say you should enjoy the process. Enjoy becoming!
Artwork:
“Becoming”
2020
To Keep (verb):
to maintain (some action), especially in accordance with specific requirements, a promise, etc.:to keep watch; to keep step.
A reminder that we need to be the keepers of our truths, our families, our past, our communities, our institutions, and all that we value.
Keep your heirlooms. Keep the family recipes. Keep the telling the stories. Keep your loved ones close. Keep making memories. Keep up your strength. Keep your courage. Keep the same energy for doing the right thing.
Know what to keep.
Know when and what to let go.
Know your yourself.
Keep taking care of yourself.
Keep believing.
Keep trusting the process.
Keep holding to God’s unchanging hand.
Keep your cool.
Keep investing.
Keep living.
Keep succeeding.
Keep caring for one another.
“My Sister’s Keeper”
2021
“CURES” is an acronym for Creativity Unleashed Rewards Every Soul. I believe in the power of creative expression and started Art CURES All as a way of encouraging others to explore creative expression as a form of self-care and stress management. Whether you are observing art, making art or working on some creative project, the stimulation to our senses and emotions from art and creativity usually lifts our spirits, tugs at our curiosity and brings us joy. I’m partial to the potency of people creating with their own hands. Creating with our hands is part power and part vulnerability; it’s important to see the power in being vulnerable.
Currently side-eyeing…
Anything that resembles:
hatred
people being unkind
discrimination
bias or racism
shadiness
erasing history
attempts to soften atrocities
alternative facts
discriminatory practices
anyone feeling superior to another person
unbridled arrogance
feelings not rooted in facts
meanness
threats
manipulation
bullies posing as saviors
religious manipulation
lack of critical thinking
laziness
dream killing (stop hating on another person)
pessimism
ignorance (searching for facts is too easy)
lukewarm anything (let the passion come alive)
fearful mindsets
anything that doesn’t resemble love/loving nature
self-hatred
She walked on water
because she BELIEVED
she could…
He walked on water.
They walked on water.
The community walked on water.
The family walked on water.
We can walk on water
if we BELIEVE.
Walk, when the water gets deep don’t stop. When you get out on the deep end of the water DO NOT let fear take you down. Keep walking in faith! Whatever the journey and wherever the journey is taking you, may God keep you and bless you.
_________________________________
“She Walked On Water Because She Believed She Could”
2022
20 x 16
Found pieces assembled on Arches watercolor paper
Happy Black History Month!
“…You have to know how great you are…”
“The moment anyone tries to demean or degrade you in any way, you have to know how great you are. Nobody would bother to beat you down if you were not a threat.”
#Cicely Tyson
_____________________________________
“Just As I Am”
2021
Found images on Arches watercolor paper
16x12
To evolve is to develop gradually, to come into being.
January 2025 marks 14 years since I moved to Chicago from Atlanta. In January 2014 I gave birth to my son. Moving to Chicago and becoming a mother are two of the most significant adult life changes that have molded into the woman I am today.
The process and journey of evolving has been frustrating, exciting, confusing, thought provoking, enriching, and it has been positively life changing. Leaving a circle of comfort forces you to build new networks personally and professionally. These networks have helped me form new and lasting friendships. I have formed friendships have given me the confidence to cultivate an art practice and led to numerous opportunities to share my creativity.
Giving birth was like stepping behind a veil. There are things you can’t comprehend until you personally experience carrying a child for 9 months, delivering a baby (for me via c-section), and raising a young man. My son reflects both the good in me and sometimes the parts of me that still need to evolve. I’m grateful he is healthy physically and emotionally. I’m thankful he is intelligent, curious, thinks critically, and questions people and the world he has been thrust into. He is creative and competitive. I know he is going to be an amazing talent in whatever he chooses to pursue.
Evolving doesn’t always mean you stray far away. This year I will celebrate 25 years of working in the pharmaceutical/healthcare industry. A job promotion 14 years ago brought me to Chicago. I look forward to many more productive years in servitude to patients who are on life saving and life sustaining therapies. I started in the industry as an individual contributor and have grown to lead national teams. I have had the privilege of working for multinational, multibillion dollar corporations and small, innovative startup organizations. I love serving patients and have done so in numerous functions.
My creative endeavors have always started with me playing it safe and then boldly evolving or pivoting. I was a jewelry artist for years and still hear from many customers who are still rocking those designs. After taking a metal smithing class in early 2014 soon after giving birth, I reluctantly accepted jewelry was going to have a take a back seat. For a while all art making took a back seat. It felt like there was only time to take care of a family, work, and enjoy art by taking advantage of Chicago’s wonderful art culture.
In 2017 I started journaling about what I wanted Art CURES All to be. The journey has not been about executing what i wrote on paper, but something more amazing than I imagined. I never intended to become an artist, but I realize I have always been an artist. I resisted becoming an artist for years because of my own limiting beliefs, particularly what I artists to be. After overwhelming encouragement from friends and aspiring collectors in 2019, I decided to create an online storefront. Simultaneously, I began to grow my social media presence for Art CURES All.
While mothering and working full-time, I have had the privilege of selling hundreds of prints, participating in numerous exhibitions, cultivating relationships with galleries, amassing a social media following, and appearing in two books. I am still evolving artistically. There are more stories to tell and explore through collage and abstraction.
I have an upcoming group exhibition where the piece pictured in this post (“I Am Evolving” 2022) will be shown. Stay tuned I also have a new collaboration launching in February. The Art CURES All storefront will feature different prints, larger sized prints, and later this year some original pieces. I look forward to sharing new works with the galleries I’m represented by and new collectors emerging.
As I continue to evolve personally and professionally one of the most important things I understand more clearly is to appreciate each day for what it is and what it brings. Evolutions are not always BIG things, but a collection of small habits, events, and activities that we gradually allow to manifest. Over time we get to celebrate the significance and the culmination of what we have allowed.
Happy New Year! Cheers to your evolutions this year, may they be positive, productive, and prosperous. 🥂
Heather
Art offers me freedom and joy.
There is joy in creating. There is joy in the solitude of creating. There is joy in making room for my voice to be heard/seen in the art that I make. There is joy in creating with others at times, especially when my son asks to join me (I rarely invite him, I never want to seem as if I’m pushing art on him). There is joy in doing my thing by myself.
In a world so quick to silence and diminish people, it’s important that we all find a place of refuge. A place of refuge where we can comfortably express ourselves, minimize interruptions, and listen to what’s in the depths of our hearts and souls. Art is my place of refuge. In my art practice I have found freedom and joy. My soul is rewarded when I create.
I wish for many others to find joy, freedom, and that thing that rewards their soul.
Her name will always be an echo until justice fills the void! 🔊Sound On 🔊
One of the things that has bothered me the most about quarantining at home during the Covid-19 pandemic is families NOT being able to properly memorialize their loved ones. I’ve been saddened by numerous stories of people losing loved ones to Covid or other health battles that they ultimately succumbed to during the pandemic. I have been quietly curious about how families feel about the experience of losing someone and having to quarantine and honor someone virtually. It’s so unnatural not to gather and console family and friends when our loved ones transition.
The service commemorating the lives of our loved ones is often referred to as a “celebration of life” or “home-going service” - these memorials are lively, yet solemn remembrances. We hug and kiss each other on the cheeks. We sit face to face and catch up because all too often these services are impromptu family reunions. We get dressed up and we gather in halls for the repast. We pass plates of homemade or catered foods. We sip red punch from little clear plastic cups. We watch our elders move slower and reflect on the days of their prime. We hold the hands of the weak and get them to their seats. This is a time of intimacy. The hugs are welcomed and sought after. The goodbyes are hard, but we are grateful that we did get up to see another day.
So how does one carry out a celebration of life or a home-going service virtually on Facebook Live or through Zoom? The virtual ceremony is completely void of the warmth we crave in the presence of family and friends. I’m curious about so much surrounding the mourning of loved ones virtually.
Sheltering in place in front of a screen, honoring the deceased with a million thoughts running through your mind. Death as a result of coronavirus is forcing the nation to reconcile itself to the sobering statistics on how African-Americans are disproportionately dying from Covid-19. Health disparities are not new and the attempts to narrow the gap in health outcomes are not new. What’s glaringly apparent is that our efforts are not working well enough. The social determinants known to impact health outcomes have to become a priority. The nation’s healthcare ecosystem must move swiftly to bring parity to the health outcomes of all Americans, especially African Americans.
I’m curious to see how the Covid-19 pandemic data is analyzed, crunched, summarized and ultimately stuffed in between plastic glossy folders. How many hands will these reports pass through and whose eyes will get to review the data? Who will have a seat the table and get to decide what’s next for Black folks dying all across the nation unnecessarily? Black people need to have a seat at the table. Black people need to be heard from and need to be listened to without bias clouding anyone’s judgement.
In lieu of flowers, please give everyone one that has died as a result of Covid-19, the good faith effort that health disparities will be tackled with more fervor, resources and commitment than ever before. In lieu of flowers, send more young blacks to medical school so when Black people go see a doctor they are more likely to see someone that looks like them. In lieu of flowers, please make investments in Black communities equitably so we don’t live in food deserts, have better access to high quality healthcare and ensure access to capital to own our homes. In lieu of flowers, someone, everyone, please make a good faith effort to ensure “we gon be alright.”
In lieu of flowers, please keep your gestures, Black Americans are more concerned with the discontinuation of antagonism against our lives.
(Written in mid May 2020, published June 2020)
“Thrive”, handcrafted collage by Heather Polk, 2020
Keep your fists up! ✊🏾
“Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.” ~Assata Shakur
"We were just human beings who saw a need to bring attention to the inequality in our country," Tommie Smith said years later, in a documentary on the 1968 Mexico City games produced for HBO. "I don't like the idea of people looking at it as negative. There was nothing but a raised fist in the air and a bowed head, acknowledging the American flag—not symbolizing a hatred for it."
“American Just-Us” - print available for purchase
Handcrafted collage by Heather Polk 2019
Rest (noun/it’s a real thing): inactivity, break, breather, breathing space, calm, calmness, cessation, coffee, break, comfort, composure, cutoff, downtime, doze, dreaminess, ease, forty winks, halt, holiday, hush, idleness, interlude, intermission, interval, leisure, letup, lull, motionlessness, nap, pause, peace, quiescence, quiet, quietude, recess, recreation, refreshment, relaxation, relief, repose, respite, siesta, silence, sleep, slumber, somnolence, standstill, stay, stillness, stop, time off, tranquillity, vacation
“Restoration”
Handcrafted collage by Heather Polk 2020