Sacred Flame
Sacred Flame came from a season where I felt like I was meeting myself again and again.
There were so many moments of realization. So many pieces of my identity that I had to look at differently. Some felt like small shifts. Others felt like deaths.
I began to see just how much of myself I had abandoned in the name of being needed.
Being the one who provides.
The one who nurtures.
The one who holds everything together.
The one who makes sure everyone else feels seen, cared for, supported, understood.
There is something beautiful about having a heart that wants to give.
The story beneath the piece
But there is also a cost when giving becomes a way of disappearing from yourself.
And for a while, I felt lost in that realization.
Lonely. Angry. Uncertain of who I was underneath all of the identities I had built around being there for everyone else.
There was a kind of feminine rage in that space.
Not rage that wanted to destroy.
Rage that said:
I cannot keep abandoning myself.
Something primal in me wanted to take all of that weight, all of the grief, all of the anger, all of the parts of myself I had buried beneath responsibility and expectation, and transform them into something beautiful.
That became Sacred Flame.
She carries a deep tension between softness and power.
The burgundy feels like the depth of the fire. The earthy tones ground her. The blushes soften her. The gold brings light back into the piece.
And the mirrors became especially important to me.
They direct the ember like energy outward, while the sunray inspired edge filters and softens the flame.
The fire doesn't consume everything around it.
It radiates.
That distinction feels important to me now.
Because I don't think the answer was ever to become harder.
It wasn't to close my heart.
It wasn't to stop nurturing or loving deeply.
It was learning that an open heart can still have boundaries. An open heart can still have fire. An open heart can still belong to the woman who carries it.
And then something unexpected happened.
After nearly ten hours of creating her, I reached the final row of dots.
I sat there for about an hour, moving around the piece one tiny dot at a time.
The gold was warm and fiery, and the repetitive movement began to feel almost like creating my own little rays of sunlight.
My life had felt incredibly fast.
And my mind had been even faster.
Constant thoughts. Constant processing. Constant noise.
Until that final row.
Something happened that I had never experienced with dotting before.
The noise went quiet.
For that hour, I wasn't trying to figure myself out.
I wasn't trying to become anything.
I wasn't taking care of anyone.
I was simply there.
One dot.
Then another.
Then another.
And somewhere inside that repetition, I felt myself come back into my body.
Maybe that is part of what Sacred Flame ultimately taught me.
Transformation doesn't always look dramatic.
Sometimes it looks like sitting quietly with yourself long enough to hear what has been underneath the noise all along.
Sometimes the fire isn't asking you to burn everything down.
Sometimes it is asking you to come home.
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The Shear Outlaw Collection
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18” Round Wood Panel
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Acrylic Paint & Dimensional Paint
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Glass mirrors and rhinestones
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Satin Varnish
Why She is called Sacred Flame
I chose this name because the flame in this piece doesn't feel destructive to me.
It feels sacred.
It is the part of us that remains alive beneath everything we have been told we need to be.
The part that knows when something is no longer true.
The part that burns away what we have outgrown.
The part that illuminates what is still waiting to be remembered.
And perhaps most importantly, the part that reminds us:
You are allowed to keep some of your fire for yourself.
If Sacred Flame now lives with you, I hope she becomes more than something beautiful on your wall.
I hope there are days when you look at her and remember your own fire.
Not the fire you give away.
The fire that is yours.
The one you tend.
The one you protect.
The one you allow to make you brighter rather than smaller.
She was born from the ashes of who I thought I had to be.
And perhaps, wherever she lives now, she can remind you of whatever part of yourself is waiting to rise, too.
This original artwork includes a signed Certificate of Authenticity documenting its title, collection, dimensions, completion date, and place within the Rooted Maker Co. archive.
