Rose-Colored Windows celebrates the complexity of mental health and how we find hope as it intertwines with emotion, stress, brain chemistry, our nervous systems, healing, relationships, and more. We want things to be simple and easy, transparent, perfectly fitting together, but the reality is that, when it comes to mental health, it’s not, it’s complex, and layered, and so much of the struggle isn’t visible, and there is a beauty and reverence in that that deserves to be honored and praised. This installation is inspired by stained glass Rose Windows which throughout history have represented universal laws of the cosmos and the psyche, serving as representations of wonder and awe at heaven. But in being human, we are beings who encounter all the different facets of living with mental and physical health challenges, like depression, disability, grief, loneliness, psychosis, addiction, and more and our ability to find hope again, process, experience, and move forward, especially as women, shows a resilience that deserves to be marveled at. This is what these individual Rose Windows represent, they are physical manifestations of the awe-inspiring, non-linear journey of our mental fortitude. 

Each layer’s design doesn’t perfectly fit with the next, they often overlap, sometimes creating new designs or colors and oftentimes creating muddiness and obscurity. And this parallels our experience of being human- we idealize control, planning something so well that it all fits together or works out, but this installation is built to be varying, responsive, and adaptable, just like our experience is. There is no puzzle to be solved, no perfect combination that shows each of the designs and colors perfectly, the beauty is in the dynamic and developing complexity. 

We traditionally think that looking at life through ‘rose colored glasses’ is a naive or bad thing, but for so many people experiencing mental health challenges we are fighting to see the world with a little bit of rosyness- hope and compassion, and that is something to be celebrated.