A statement on From Confinement to Consciousness, a multimedia mural by Amanda Ybarra with support from Delilah Douglas

When Kristal approached me with the idea of doing a mural for Studio Zen (I had been dropping hints and waiting hopefully for the ask), I didn’t hesitate to say yes even though I had been seriously struggling with my creative energy over the last few years. I knew the experience would be healing for me.

Kristal and I had been close friends and colleagues at an earlier time in our lives. As adults often do, we drifted apart over the years, busy with life and kids and work. I am not the same person that I was when I knew her before and I’m sure she would say the same. The mural was an opportunity for me to reconnect with her, my old friend, a reconnection that became an important aspect of discovering the inspiration for the mural together. Kristal wanted the mural to honor the history of the building, which at one time had been both an overflow for the jail and housing for work-release inmates, but wanted it to also celebrate the promise of her vision: a house of healing, a space for self-discovery, a place for peace. And she wanted this all wrapped up in a wabi-sabi package. (If you don’t know what wabi-sabi is, you should look it up. I had to.) I struggled a bit to find a way to pull these disparate ideas into a cohesive presentation. I needed a story to tell. We spent many late-night texts and in-person meetings discussing her ideas and my many and often difficult-to-clearly-communicate ideas (which were sometimes overwhelming for her, I’m sure). Finally, we arrived at a kind of destination, more a starting point, the overarching idea that would shape the story of the mural: from confinement to consciousness.

This mural is an homage to all the ways a person can be confined, from the literal confinement of a prison, as represented in the metal fence, to the figurative confinement of societal norms and expectations, as represented in the cracked mirror hanging on the fence. It is a representation of the physical limitations of our too often broken and unwell bodies, the spiritual limitations placed on us by religious and cultural beliefs, the psychological limitations caused by mental health struggles and addictions. All of these and more are here, presented in the images, textures, objects, and patterns on this wall, becoming part of the story of this space that once broke spirits but will now help heal them. The mural is a prayer to nature, to the past, to the future, a call to the ancestors, to the universe, to all the things that heal the human body and spirit. It is a meditation on darkness and light.

What I wanted most when I started this journey was for this mural not to be just a cool or pretty picture painted on a wall: I wanted it to be an experience.

I want you to see it differently every time you stand with it, to discover something you didn’t see the first time, the second time, the third time. I want you to feel connected to it in the way that I felt while creating it. I hope the mural makes you think hard things. I hope it makes you think happy things. And I hope it makes you feel many things, but ultimately, I hope that it speaks to you in the moment that you are in here, right now, and that it helps you in some small way find beauty and hope and light in what can be a very dark world.

• Amanda Ybara:  AmandaYbarra1789@gmail.com  – 765-749-2708
• Delilah Douglas:  DouglasDelilah@gmail.com – 765-749-4593