the power of community | vancouver bc group boudoir

“Women and the earth have to tolerate a lot.”

I’ve been thinking about this quote a lot lately, especially as our newsfeeds and algorithms (at least mine) are flooded with horrific updates from the files-that-shall-not-be-named. Despair and apathy feel like one small stumble away — like it’d be easier to just giveup and write off this whole horrible planet.

But I am stubborn, and I refuse to let this taint my hope in the world. In the hope that women, children, and the earth will rise stronger, together.

My work has always been my love letter to women who have endured. Women and expansize genders who have fought tooth and nail to reach some semblance of peace within their skin. A peace that this world has violently tried to remove from us, that we keep persevering anyways.

To quote Hamilton, “I am the one thing in life I can control”

And that control, to me, looks like channeling my rage and grief into my art, into my clients, and into community.

It looks like therapy, it looks like community care, it looks like creating messy art, it looks like messaging my friends to say I love you, and it means, sometimes, crying so hard I snot all over my favourite sweater.

This is my love letter to you, dear one, who has found themselves reading this post.

That we are stronger together.

Our hope, combined, is brighter than their darkness.

In what ways can you lean on your community, and exalt matriarchy in your circles?

How can we begin to center community care, collective healing, and celebration of the good there still is in the world?

During these dark times, I keep coming back to the beauty of my group shoots.

There is something insanely potent and magical about gathering a bunch of women together, to baring it all together, body and soul — and making art out of it.

In a world that wants us controllable and complacent to their standards of beauty and behaviour, these group shoots are the balm to my soul.

So I want to share this one with you, in hopes that within you can find a reminder that there is power in community. That matriarchy is the natural order, that the old world is crumbling, and from the ashes a more beautiful, community-centered collective may rise.

Thank you for being here, I love you.

M xx