"Phoenix for Kari" by Jennifer Coulter Stapleton
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“In the Winter and Spring of 2021, I took a multi-week class exploring my experience of whiteness and unlearning racism. As I sat in the zoom sessions of the class, I worked on this piece. The Phoenix reminded me of how people of color rise time and again. And, it reminded me of the healing and liberation that is available for all of us if we acknowledge our racist history and culture and commit to creating something new.
At the same time, a dear friend was coming to terms with the end of her marriage. Like a Phoenix, she vowed to come back stronger and more beautiful.
Finally, when I was first coming out as a lesbian two decades ago, the Phoenix was such a powerful symbol for me. I stood in the fire as my identify and world as I knew it burned to the ground. And from the ashes, I rose to an amazing life.”
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Meet the Artist: Jennifer Coulter Stapleton
When I make art—draw, paint, take a photograph, sing—I’m aiming to let the divine creative consciousness flow through me. I’m creating in order to represent reality the way I see it and the way I want it to be. And sometimes, when it is great, making art is like that for me. But, other times, it’s trying to cram in five minutes to shade a piece while my seven-year-old screams from the other room that she wants to go for a walk. It’s squeezing in voice exercises while making my wife dinner after she gets home from a long day of work as an essential worker during a pandemic. But for me, creating art is like that old adage about fishing—a bad day creating is a better than a good day just about anywhere else.
I grew up in East Tennessee, went to college in Virginia, went to theology school in Denver and have lived in the Washington, DC area for almost twenty years. In DC, I’ve done communications and PR for a litany of justice issues. As a Southern, Christian, white, lesbian, art is a way to share my point of view that is shaped by all these “identities” into one human being.
As a founding partner of Fire & Bliss, I’m thrilled to be creating a space that centralizes the voices and viewpoints of people who have often not been valued. The art and expression of queer and BIPOC artists is a means of survival, is powerful, is shaping a new world, demands to be heard. Thanks so much for being here with us.