Marshall Magazine Spring 2022

take on political and social issues in their approach to teaching. “I don’t want to just teach art. I want to teach protest art and show how to argue in a non-polarizing way,” Wilkes explained. “I want to teach self-portraiture in a way that explores insecurities and social imbalances. Ultimately, I want the community to feel really unified, including the art show at the end of our two-year grant.” It was during the height of the pandemic, when Wilkes missed the feeling of being together, that inspired the 100 Badass Women series of oil portraits. On the day Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, Wilkes felt compelled to paint her portrait. Realizing there were 100 days left in 2020, they decided to paint one woman’s portrait each day until the end of the year. The paintings

ranged from local “shero” Jan Rader to a wide variety of entertainers, political figures and historical game changers. For each, Wilkes began by researching their stories and decid ing each morning who that day’s subject would be. Serendipitously, the overwhelmingly positive reaction to the paintings on social media helped conquer their loneliness and often influenced the choice of future subjects. “It was my way of reaching out to people. The social media interaction and community collaboration were the most meaningful parts of the whole project,” Wilkes said. A one-person exhibit of the 100 paintings is slated to open at the Huntington Museum of Art in November 2022, and Wilkes is considering including some of those online conversations along with the

portraits. Wilkes also hopes to pub lish a coffee table book of the 100 women in the near future. “In many ways, those 100 por traits transformed me. I don’t think I was totally comfortable showing up in the world because I wasn’t being real,”Wilkes said. “That’s part of why I wanted to come out as trans and be honest about things. That felt like a necessary step. What’s the point of being seen if you’re not really being seen? I want to be 100% authentic all the time, no matter where I am. I think it’s going be a good thing.” Now we truly see all the parts that make up that one person known as Sassa Wilkes. And what we see is inspiring.

Carter Seaton is a freelance writer living in Huntington, West Virginia.

33

S P R I N G 2 0 2 2