Healing

Healing

Age 66  ·  Caucasian background  ·  Vaginal birth: Yes

She was sixty-six when she sat with this process. A lifetime of shared experience with her own body behind her — and from all of it, a profound and hard-won respect. She had come to understand the elusive relationship between a woman and her most private self. She had watched it deepen over decades. To have it made into a portrait seemed, to her, entirely natural.

“It was like trying to pay the highest honour to your most trusted friend, and feeling vastly inadequate. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”

As a young girl I was of the opinion that the vulva was an organ of procreation and occasionally pleasure with a respectful partner. As my vulva and I progressed through many shared experiences I became aware of the profoundly elusive relationship we entered. From this grew respect for all aspects of my Self. To have a portrait of this mostly hidden perspective seemed natural.

When Caris first told me of her desire to create these portraits I was completely on board. I am always supportive of anything that respects the sacred feminine — so it was rather intriguing when trying to capture the perfect image for the project. It was like trying to pay the highest honour to your most trusted friend, and feeling vastly inadequate. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

I have long been an admirer of Caris’s artwork. Her professionalism and dedication to capturing the deeper meanings of art has helped me question what lies beneath all of us.

Healing is not fixed — it is in process. This portrait was made by a woman who knows that, and who has kept going anyway. For sixty-six years.

This portrait is part of the Femessence Women’s Celebration Series — a body of work by artist and arts therapist Caris Pepper honouring the sacred feminine through vulva portrait art. Each portrait in this series is becoming a card in the Femessence Vulva Portrait Oracle deck, coming 2027.