Visual Hauntings: That Cactus Smile

BY CHRISTINE STODDARD

I made “That Cactus Smile” using mostly tissue paper and acrylic, but it also contains tiles and found objects. I was inspired to make the piece after visiting my sister in Arizona. Hence the cactus. But why the lips? We still live in a world where women so often don’t have a voice. Exploring feminine power and energy is integral to all that I create. And when I visited Arizona, I felt that power in the desert, just as I do everywhere in nature. The feminine is natural and good and we must honor it. We must let it speak. We must give it equal importance in every conversation.

Christine Stoddard is a Salvadoran-Scottish-American writer and artist based in Brooklyn. Her work has appeared in Marie Claire, The Feminist Wire, Bustle, Cosmopolitan, So to Speak, Tulane Review, Jimson Weed, the New York City Poetry Festival, and beyond. Christine is the author of Hispanic and Latino Heritage in Virginia and the co-author of Images of America: Richmond Cemeteries. In 2014, Folio Magazine named her one of the media industry’s top 20 visionaries in their 20s.