I paint to find myself,
Each brushstroke listens before it speaks.
Each color holds a feeling
I didn’t know how to name.
The women I paint are not strangers.
They are reflections, echoes, possibilities.
They carry softness in their posture
and strength in their stillness.
Some look outward.
Some turn inward.
All of them belong.
When I paint, I give myself permission
to be layered;
bold and fragile,
dreaming and grounded,
unfinished and whole.
I let my hands move before my thoughts,
trusting that truth knows the way.
Flowers bloom where words fall short.
Hearts repeat what memory remembers.
Night skies, flowing hair, and quiet gazes
become symbols of becoming.
Each canvas holds a moment of honesty;
a place where I don’t have to explain myself
to be understood.
Empowerment, for me, is not loud.
It lives in presence.
In softness that refuses to disappear.
In a woman standing in her own emotional landscape
without apology.
Through painting,
I learn to trust myself.
To listen closely.
To honor intuition as wisdom.
To see vulnerability not as weakness,
but as courage painted in gentle lines.
Paintings by Valerie is my unfolding.
A record of growth, healing, and self-acceptance.
It is a celebration of women as they are;
complex, tender, resilient, and powerful
in ways that don’t ask for permission.
I paint to remember who I am.
I paint to imagine who I can become.
And in every woman I create,
I reclaim a piece of myself.
-Vmmcruzclaudio
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