This oil painting depicts my great-grandmother, Julia Mae, who was the matriarch of the maternal side of my family. I never got the chance to meet her, but I hear stories about her from those that did know her. There has always been a sense of melancholy that I have associated with learning more about her, because I know that we will never meet; however, her presence still permeates through the environments I encounter regularly while visiting family in eastern North Carolina. In this piece, Julia Mae is standing at the edge of a forest while she, herself, stands out among the murkiness in a dress that is ablaze with light. The use of fluorescent green is important in this work, as it characterizes the underlying warning sign that not everything is what it seems. It is a reminder of discomfort one might have in a place they thought they could call home, as they experience the growing pains of jumping from girlhood to womanhood, slowly being pulled into social consciousness.