Cleavages are the weakest planes on the surface of a gemstone, along which it can be carved to reveal its hidden brilliance. Just as the process of cleaving determines the stone’s overall toughness and quality, similarly, discarding layers of ourselves that no longer serve our highest good as people determines the beauty and strength of our lives. My piece is a metaphorical portrait of a woman being “cleaved,” revealing the best, most refined parts of herself for onlookers to witness. Of course the process is a difficult and painful one; it is a fracture after all. And a single instance of cleaving is never the be-all and end-all. However, it is this continual and essential chipping that makes us who we are. Inspired by cubism, the subject of the artwork is composed of many different planes. The fragments that constitute the subject and the imperfections that remain in the artwork are reflective of the fact that soem of these planes may yet be discarded in the future even though they form an important part of us today. Ultimately, in this piece I portray the person through the analogy of a “diamond in the rough” that, as the fables go, needs to be subjected to the most intense of pressures to carve out the strongest and most radiant version of herself. It is this process of persistent cleaving that ironically make us immune to shattering in the face of life.
