Artist: Erin Nimmer
Title: She is Good
Media: Original Collage and acrylic on panel
Size: 21 x 15 in.
Artist Statement: 
Long ago I had a conversation with a friend about how the purity culture of my youth negatively impacted my mental health. She told me she couldn’t relate. At the time that felt invalidating, but through many other conversations over the years I’ve come to understand that we cannot judge people for responding to life’s variables in their own unique way. Every human is so complex. I used to be threatened by those variations mainly because I thought it meant there was something “wrong” with ME. 
I’ve since learned to have grace for others and myself. I had to learn to validate my own experience which consisted of feeling like I would never be good enough, and feelings of deep shame around the human body. Conversations formal and informal around modesty, moral cleanliness, and worthiness impacted me intensely which makes sense given my unique brain and life experiences. 
It has taken a great amount of tenacity, patience, love, and help overflowing from my Heavenly Parents and Savior, to begin to heal from the shame and anxieties I’d carried. In order to begin to step into my God-given divine power I had to learn how to hear and trust my unique voice, my experience, and my agency. As I’ve done that I’ve felt a more genuine connection with God. Because of this, no matter the obstacle, the wind is at my back. It has been a messy and sacred journey thus far, but now I can say in full confidence “I am good” just as God created the world and validated it and called it good.