The Women That Have Inspired My Art and My Soul
Art I Am Consuming For International Women's Day and Women's History Month!
The Women That Have Inspired My Art and My Soul
A Luminous Lineage: Celebrating Women Who Make the World Sing:
March arrives with a certain light - a soft, promising brightness that reminds us how women have long illuminated the world through art, courage, imagination, and voice. During Women’s History Month, and especially around International Women’s Day on March 8, I find myself reflecting on the women whose creative spirits have shaped my own path as an artist. Their work is more than inspiration; it is a living lineage of vision, daring, and beauty.
Women create. Women transform. Women light the way.
Frida Kahlo, whose paintings feel like open hearts translated into color. Kahlo did not paint simply to represent the world - she painted to survive it. Her self-portraits are intimate landscapes of pain, resilience, and identity, where flowers bloom alongside scars. In every brushstroke she reminds us that vulnerability can be power, and that our personal stories are worthy of being seen.
Pictured Above: Self Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird by Frida Kahlo, 1940
Below: What a Human Being Is by Hilma af Klint, 1910
Another guiding star is Hilma af Klint, a visionary far ahead of her time. Long before abstract art was recognized by the mainstream art world, af Klint was painting vast spiritual geometries - spirals, symbols, and luminous forms that seemed to map invisible realms. Her work feels like a quiet conversation with the cosmos. Today, her paintings remind us that intuition, mysticism, and feminine insight have always been part of art’s deepest currents.
Images Above: The Ten Largest, No. 2, Childhood, Hilma af Klint, 1907 and portrait of Hilma
Image Below: Portrait of Yayoi Kusama, Photo by Yusuke Miyazaki. © YAYOI KUSAMA. Courtesy Ota Fine Arts, Victoria Miro, and David Zwirner.
The deep universe of Yayoi Kusama invites us into infinity. Her polka dots and mirrored rooms dissolve the boundaries between the self and the cosmos. Kusama’s work is vibrant, hypnotic, and deeply personal - a look into how imagination can transform us and maybe even save us.
Music, too, carries the voices of extraordinary women. Joni Mitchell is one of those rare artists whose songs feel like poems carried on the wind. Her melodies wander through landscapes of love, freedom, heartache, longing, and self-discovery. Mitchell writes with a painter’s eye - each lyric layered with color and emotional texture. Listening to her work feels like watching a sky change at dusk: subtle, radiant, unforgettable.
And sometimes inspiration arrives not only in museums or records, but in the electrifying energy of performance.
Photographs and Article by Leanne Trivett S. ©
Except...First Photo Below is by Jeremy Whitson ©
This month, I had the joy of seeing Lady Gaga twice in Atlanta - an experience that felt less like a concert and more like stepping into a living artwork. Gaga is fearless in the way she blends music, fashion, theater, and raw emotion. For two decades, her artistry has inspired my own journey and career in music and performance. She reminds me that creativity can be bold, theatrical, vulnerable, and most importantly she inspired me to unapologetically be ME. Her songs remind me why I make art at all: to transform, to feel deeply, and to celebrate the beautiful strangeness of being human.
This Women’s History Month, I celebrate the women who came before us, the women creating today, and the creative fire they ignite in all of us
Women create. Women transform. Women light the way.
Photographs and Article by Leanne Trivett S. ©