This painting represents so many parts of my lifelong journey. In April of 2020, I participated in a liberation ceremony. At the time there was this weight of uncertainty felt covering life. With everything happening outside, it can become easy to go inside and slip away. I didn't know when I made this painting if the world was ending or beginning. In some ways, I wonder if God stopped everything at that moment in time just to remind many of us of how precious life really is. Some would say that you have to be a little fucked up to participate in an exorcism over zoom but that's what I did the day I made this painting. I look at this painting and see a spirit flying away above the chaos. Light overcoming dark. I am honored in the many ways I have been able to share Liberation with the world, including as the featured summer label Moscato for Sip & Share Wines. It really fulfills a dream for me to share my artwork in this way. I think back on the guy I was when I first moved here over a decade ago and began viewing the works at art walks. I feel that Derrick from back then would have finished the bottle of wine by himself, then stared at the painting for the rest of the night unable to connect that the label was the same image. This Derrick today feels the prayer of his overwhelmed soul answered with your viewing.