HEARTWORK

Maya Angelou had this quote, “Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.”

Love and hope are intertwined. While love can reflect on emotions of yesterday and an appreciation of an emotion today, it can also be the anticipation of a hope fulfilled tomorrow.

If centuries from now, civilizations look back at the artifacts saved from the present day, my guess is that they would find a lot of heart-shaped doodles in notebooks and elsewhere scribbled through the preservation of our society. Those future civilizations would decipher the heart-shaped glyphs and recognize how central love is toward the progress of our collective culture and the aspirations of each other.

These heart-shaped doodles represent just one of the best aspects of us and our humanity. That despite all of the atrocities and harshness that can come with life, we can hope for and find solace in love. We can celebrate and memorialize our love for each other. And the symbol that we communicate love is simple and recognized universally.

This collection of 25 pieces is based on an off-hand comment a friend mentioned when I shared an early version of one of the first concepts in November 2020. “Oh, that’s not just artwork, that’s Heartwork.” The name stuck and I thought it was a perfect reflection of where our society was, emotionally, as we inched closer to finishing the year.

Ten prints of each 4”x6” painting have been created and are hand-numbered. Visit the Prevent Child Abuse Iowa Heartwork site to secure your copy of one of these limited pieces and support Prevent Child Abuse Iowa.