Between a Sock and a Hard Place / Oil on linen / 24” x 18” / 2023

Between a Sock and a Hard Place depicts artist Jessica Yau in a moment when her home life overwhelms her artistry. Warm orange tones on the left juxtapose cool blue pigments on the right, splitting the composition between the confines of her children’s snake cage and the rest of the room opposite. Reflected light across Yau’s face and her mirrored visage in the glass break the boundary. A trapping net for a home basketball arcade sits on the right, toys lay strewn across the floor and the family dog sits on Yau’s lap. She is trying to work.

Where do we find the wherewithal to make art? The American Heritage dictionary defines wherewithal as “The necessary means, especially financial means.” There is desperation in the word: an onomatopoeic wail. If savings is the ability to impose on others, then how – amid obligations – do we claim time, space and energy?

LWC: I’ve know Jessica for more than a decade. Our boys went to preschool together and somehow the friendship stuck. She never put me in a box. I really appreciated that. With this painting, in many ways I felt I was painting my own life. There are big-picture societal questions that I think every parent can relate to, most poignantly: How to make a life without becoming trapped by it? It’s the challenge of pursuing multiple priorities, perhaps the frustration - even shame - if we want something impractical, and the complexity of allowing ourselves to keep growing through adulthood. As I made this painting, I came to feel that being happily trapped in our lives requires us to become our own caretakers - to see what we need and nourish ourselves.