Pretty Fire

✨ MY CALLING MONDAY ✨

The #1 question I get about my art:
“Why do you use yourself instead of casting another model?”

Simple. Because if the world was casting my story,
they’d pick somebody taller, skinnier, lighter.
Loose curls, not kinky coils.
Basically… not me.

So I became the art I needed.

I make the work for the 6-year-old me who thought She-Ra and my grandma were the two baddest women alive.
For the 12-year-old me who wanted a perm and couldn’t see the beauty in her kinks and coils.
For the 16-year-old me who kept being told I was “sexy” but rarely heard I was beautiful.

I put myself in the work because somewhere in East St. Louis, Flint, Detroit, Chicago — right now — there’s a little brown girl staring in the mirror trying to shrink herself into a beauty standard that was never made for her.

And I want her to see me and say,
“Oh… I’m already enough.”

I also do this for Black men and boys — especially men of color — to expand their idea of what beauty looks like. I hear all the time:
“You’re the first dark-skinned woman I’ve ever been attracted to.”
And that tells me everything about how limited the imagery has been.

So yeah — I use myself because this is representation as resistance.
This is healing as art.
This is Black love, healthy touch, and Black womanhood on our own terms.

To say it plain:
I’m in my art because I’m supposed to be. 🖤

Not for attention.
Not for validation.
But so the girls who look like me can finally see themselves as the main character — not the side note.

Subversive. Black Girl. Artist.
Modern-day griot.
Still telling our stories. Still reclaiming the image. Still making the art I wish I had growing up. ✨

If this resonates, my first book of poetry Black Pool of Genius – Volume I goes even deeper into this journey.

You can grab it here:
👉🏾 https://a.co/74Et9UE

✨ HEALING WEDNESDAY ✨

My hair journey been healing me for YEARS —
from perms → my big fro → now locs.

And imma be real…
I miss my fro.
These locs cute but they don’t feel like me yet.
Still proud of myself tho, ’cause I been loyal to my REAL hair since BEFORE it was “cute.”

Back when folks called me puffball, wooly-headed, nappy —
God was already teaching me:
“How you treat your REAL hair reflects how you feel about YOURSELF.”

So yeah… I’m at that crossroads.
Unloc? Or let ’em cook another year? 👀
But this journey is for ME,
about ME,
and led by GOD — not opinions.

Still healing.
Still becoming. ✨🖤

⸻