Johanna DeBiase

My work explores both feminist and ecological issues resulting from patriarchal western culture. A lifelong feminist, I write about women and their role in society. Women straddle the line between vulnerable and strong. We are smaller, make less money and have less power than men, but we give birth, raise children, and embody beauty and sexual influence. This balance can often be difficult to uphold, and women end up negotiating with reality in various ways, both positive and negative. As a result, my writing is often surreal, focusing on dreams and myths, where we go to work through life’s mysteries. I love the world of metaphor, imagery and the imaginal realm of the psyche. 

I also write about nature, though I don’t think this subject is so different from that of women. Nature is the feminine/yin aspect of our world. Women and nature have many parallels in the way they are devalued and revered simultaneously. Organically, humans and the earth are integrated in ways we often forget. As the decimation of our planet continues irresponsibly in full force, I seek to draw out and reveal this interconnectedness in my work.

From my off-grid desert home, I live and write in the liminal space between time and reality. I have one foot in the primitive past and one foot in the present era of internet, social media and cell phones. My work is inspired by my daily walks along the rim of the Rio Grande Gorge National Monument only a short hike from my front door. The world is visible 360 degrees in every direction. I witness the walking rain, distant lightning bolts, rainbows, rising moons and sunsets splayed across the sky. Here the world of nature and art are one and the same, as my life and art are one and the same. In everything, I seek magic, the connection between our societal constructs of reality and the moment-by-moment intervention of the divine in our mundane lives.