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Joyce McDonald is an artist in many senses of the word. She is, of course, a literal artist: a talented painter and sculptor whose works often capture in stark relief the gamut of emotions she’s experienced throughout her colorful life. Joyce is also a weaver of words: not just as a poet or a songwriter (she is both), but also as speaker for her church’s AIDS ministry and assistant director of its children’s choir. We are celebrating her for Love Positive Women 2019.

My art practice has always been tied into what is happening around me. I am constantly seeing and hearing things that really need to be manifested as visual. In any given day I probably get 30 ideas for pieces.

That’s the easy part but what’s more difficult is trying to decipher if it merits the attention and energy I will would put into it.

I used to kind of flip around from concept to idea to concept, but now I tend to work longer and more intensely with one to three areas at a time. Right now, my focus is on disenfranchised older women, rage, and always, some concept of beauty. Generally this manifests as nature.

I am grateful for community. For me, I find the most healing when I find community with others living with HIV. When I can share and hold space with another survivor (anyone still living with the virus is a survivor). It means the world to meet another person, who is a survivor of all the shame, guilt, and trauma that comes with being HIV positive. Healing happens when you find another person who is willing to trust you, and share that they are HIV positive. I find healing when I can share, hold space, and facilitate a discussion with 3 other young people living with HIV. I find healing when we can talk about our shared struggles, and support one another without any filters, without any judgement, or without any shame or stigma in the room. When I am in this kind of space, I don’t need to explain to anyone what it’s like to be living with HIV. Everyone in the room just gets it already, no explanations necessary. A space that is affirming, and truly free from the feeling of: “sometimes it feels like HIV negative people will never get it.” That is a very rare space to find.

Written by Nic Holas for The HIV Howler: Transmitting Art and Activism

“Build bridges with groups made invisible to society because of fear, phobia, racism, discrimination and stigma. Trans sex workers of colour are the most vulnerable and least consulted. Building bridges means sitting at the table when decisions are made."

Those are the words of Dinah de Riquet-Bons, who this week should need no introduction. Any AIDS 2018 delegate at the Monday night opening ceremony would not be able to forget her opening address, alongside Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation, Sigrid Kaag. So impressive, so moving, was de Riquet-Bons that Kaag implored her to commence a career in politics, telling her “need more women like you.”

L’Orangelis Thomas Negron
January 31st
San Juan, Puerto Rico

Lo más práctico que aprendí del amor, fue durante el proceso de sanación de la última depresión que sentí después de verano. El proceso de la sanación es, para mi, un ciclo de apoderamiento sobre conciencias, herramientas, narrativas y poderes, que nos mueve de un punto a otro, para recordar sin dolor, más con aprendizaje. En aquel momento varias cosas se entrelazaban; las muy personales, los asuntos políticos y de activismo, la situación por la que cruza el país, y aquellas más espirituales y de transiciones que no siempre una entiende. El proceso de salir de ahí, fue un trabajo arduo, de estar constantemente presente en mi, ser paciente conmigo misma, darme el permiso de sentir lo que tuviese que sentir para moverme de punto “A” a punto “B”, escoger en qué cosas, momentos y personas iba a poner mi energía, entre otras.

For more than Thirty years, 

The same doors swing open,

While rusty ones slam shut.

I am and have been HIV-positive 11,000 days.

Why is this virus different than a cold virus? 

Why do rules bar me from certain pleasures?

What difference did it ever make to most people?

How come the world forgot to set off fireworks

The night I discovered that I was no longer infectious? 

No longer able to transmit, this virus?

By Wanda Hernandez Parks

Chair on the board of Directors of Vocal-NY, cofounder of the Women Empowerment Art Therapy group, with Shirlene Cooper. I have encountered many great organizations, but only one connects art and activism. I became a member of Visual AIDS in 2014, when I attended the Love Positive Women event. I immediately fell in love with Visual AIDS and their mission and I am taking in every opportunity I can to leave a legacy behind.

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It is nothing new that there is a project of extermination on course, it did not begin yesterday and it will not end tomorrow… a project that aims at profit and that is managed by the market… In which some bodies are more “dieable” than others. The subject with rights is the cis-hetero-white man, and what is left for everything else that does not fit into this, is the enemy’s criminal law. And we are the enemy.

Being invited to write as an artist, to be celebrated for the campaign Positive Affirmation Day, felt great. I had a sense of pride, a warmth, a worthiness, feelings that I am learning to cultivate, so sure, I’ll support Love Positive Women, tell me more…

“Luv til it hurts”

“Ummm”  

Now I feel unsettled, confused, triggered.

I breathe, 

I am a survivor of intimate partner violence, 

Written by Jessica Whitbread for The HIV Howler: Transmitting Art and Activism

In 2012, Olive Edwards supported the Jamaican Community of Positive Women (JCW+) in establishing a quilting club to support women living with HIV to engage in dialogue about their trauma in relation to HIV. In 2016, this arts based method for establishing peer to peer connections was developed into a 2 day workshop to enable for the process to be shared and replicated in three other countries in the Caribbean region (Barbados, Guyana, and Trinidad and Tabago).