Justseeds artist Jess X. Snow just finished a mural about inter generational healing commissioned by Stanford University’s Institute for Diversity in the Arts  . Read more in this article from the SF Chronicle here. The quote below is written by the author of the article, Grace Li.

“The mural derives its title — “Are You Sure Sweetheart, That You Want To Be Well?” — from author Toni Cade Bambara’s book “The Salt Eaters,” which Holt says speaks to the “complexity of healing.”

“We find ourselves as both the organ and the blade — the person that inflicts harm, and the person that has received that harm,” Holt says. “Healing has to happen on both sides. We know that from our work in restorative justice. So how can we respond to harm knowing that care has to be given holistically? And to think beyond just punishment as the only way to redress harm?”

One answer is to look to the Earth.

“The most resilient ecosystems are the most biodiverse,” Snow says. “We can look at the Earth for inspiration about how to start revolutions and how to survive after trauma, because that’s what plants do, and that’s what animals do all the time.”

Another answer is to acknowledge the problematic histories that powerful institutions often have.”

This mural is about the Mother Earth offering a transference of healing to a younger, sweetheart figure, who is constellated by a community of young activists. Between their hands, a column of light and sage that grows toward the sun. The petals of California wild poppies in bloom are carried between them by the wind. This is also the futuristic care work that IDA at Stanford does inside this building, made visible out the outside, in the legacy of Toni Cade Bambara and the other incredible people named in the class called  “Long Live Our Four Billion Year Old Mother: black feminist praxis, indigenous resistance and cultures of queer possibility” taught by A-lan Holt, who organized the mural and Jakeya Caruthers.

Jess also finished another mural on the construction board outside Google in NYC on 8th Ave and 16th St in a show with eight women and non-binary artists curated by Art Bridge. It will be up until October. The mural uplifts three trans and non-binary folks of color who call NYC their home.