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Where does violence begin was the core question of this body of work. In looking at this issue, I began to hone in to the moment a girl has her first menses, becoming the moment she is now fertile to create new life. A life of a child who could potentially never know violence. But given our world, the chances any given person could grow up without ever being touched by it,is close to nil.

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I began researching traditions around the world regarding a womans menses, from the Eskimos, to Jewish traditions, western ideas etc. The aspect that a woman sees blood every month seemed somehow to tie back to my point in so far as every month something dies inside , a potential, a part of her that did not come to fuition one could say. She is exposed over and over every month to the possibility of new life on earth. She touches  blood and a sort of death continually, emobodying the metaphor time after time.

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I looked at it from the point of view as well that the majority of death and bloodshed has been created by our brothers, fathers, husbands, and sons. While women burry them, bear them, raise them, marry them, how much of a role do women play in allowing violence to continue or not, begins the instant her body comes of age. The end or the beginning of another life cycle. 

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