Alone at Last comes from a series of "Band-Aid paintings" that Baldwin created. In this piece, the Band-Aids over the model’s mouth have popped open, allowing her mouth to open in a wide scream. For Baldwin, this scream is about aloneness, and may represent either isolation or the desire to be left alone. It conveys "the inner message that we all have that we wish to scream to the world—that we are stuffed, buried, neglected or crushed." The model also wears a mask of Band-Aids, which represents "the mask that we all wear, which allows a dim view of what is really going on both inside and outside our personal experience." Although this series is, according to Baldwin, often about women, it is more often an emotional comment about the feminine aspect of everyone.

For Baldwin, art is more than creating or expressing, it is a very spiritual experience. "Art is like living," she says. "To define ‘art’ is limiting but, without art, life becomes simply existence."

[artist biography by Sydney Pettus; artist photograph by Natalie Ramon]