Lady Riveters is a digital piece.  A photo collage based on the impactful influence that a few of the strong women before me had on my identity.  I wanted to show what values they have passed along to me with symbolism in each image.  There are poppies from the American Legion Auxiliary that my grandmother, my mother, myself and both my daughters have all been members of.  It reminds me of our value of service.  Lady slippers which grew wild on my maternal grandmother’s land and the cow I water painted remind me of our value of nature.  Ferns grew there too and as a perennial, remind me of my strength to grow and adapt with the seasons of my life.  Rosie the riveter reminds me of both my grandmothers and mother by the physical, mental, and societal struggles they have powered through.  The dumpster reminds me of the stories I heard about us or them having to “dive” for food or clothing.  It is a symbol of our appreciation for food and material objects and their true worth.  The Bohemian Rhapsody in the sunset is both a reminder of my ethnicity and also my personal love of music.  The beer represents the alcoholism fought on both sides of my family, which led to my grandfather’s fatal esophageal cancer.  The women in my family have fought the alcoholism in their men but never had drinking problems of their own.  So I left one for Rosie.  This is also why I value health.  The light blue 1967 GTO is the car my grandmother both raced, totaled, and had remade.  I remember the adrenaline rush of riding in the back seat of it, even more exciting because there were no seat belts!  The novelty license plate I designed has an abbreviation of a positive mantra my GREATgrandmother would tell the women in my family; “This too shall pass”.  It has brought us comfort in hard times to know that all things change, yet is also a call to enjoy the present.  That is why when my 5 year old daughter wanted to erase part of the car, I let her.  It reminded me of seeing it totaled before it was fixed and it brought my daughter joy to get to “play” with mommy’s picture.  Then finally, I have a road map I created out of a picture of Czechoslovakia because I also have heritage there but know nothing much of it other than the deliciously comforting lefse the women of my family continued to make which I piled in the corner.  I hope to go one day.  Only by knowing where we came from, can we know where we are going, and we will need strong women among us.