Suzanne Scott Constantine
Mixed media on canvas, 2017-2023. 24” x 30”

Life’s journey includes ebbs and flows, peaks and valleys. In the metaphorical Valley of Dry Bones, there appears to be absolutely no hope of life. In those valleys, we use breath as a return to mindfulness. With the exhale, we cry out, “Rise up!”

Eventually, this process of breath and centering turns hopelessness and despair into a possibility for optimism. We begin to see light. Whatever despair may look like to you or me, conscious breath can begin to turn that despair around. To spark new life.

We can never outrun our collective or personal histories. But this painting is an exemplar of what radical hope looks like. The work symbolizes our communal history, and metaphorically declares that there is a possibility of new life in all of those dry-bones places.