The beauty of The Morning After lies in the vulnerability of this instance in time. This piece captures a moment in the journey of a person experiencing one of the steps in the grieving process. Often when we think of beauty, we will think of it in terms of physical attributes; quantifiable or measurable features that are immediately recognizable - things such as proportions, size and color. The Morning After possesses the beauty of voluptuous hips and a waist that dips inward to create an hourglass silhouette. But when my eye draws the curves of her form - when I follow her arms as they wrap around her chest and feel the tension in her stomach as she draws her legs up – I am compelled by the beauty that comes not from her contours, but because I feel her loss. I can relate to her experience of solitude, rejection and despair. The Morning After tells me her story of longing; the longing to have that person you have given your heart to, your body to, to feel their touch, to feel them responding to you physically, to feel them present by your side. That is what draws me into this piece. It is the haunting beauty of loss that is part of life’s rhythm, and the reminder that it is okay to have those dark shadows of life and to not be afraid. Her beauty is in the rawness of the emotion.