The audience listened raptly on Thursday, Sept. 18, as artist, author and role model Sabrina Ward Harrison, spoke at Salem College about her life and experiences.Harrison has written two books, Spilling Open and Brave on the Rocks. Each includes collages of black and white photography, colorful brush strokes, and inspiring words about her insecurities and hopes as a woman. She started writing at the age of 18, and her words have inspired many women since.

Salem College hosted Harrison’s four-day workshop for women only. The workshop members ranged in age from 20 to 65. Students wrote personal reflections on wooden panels that filled the long hallway of the Salem College gallery and reached from floor to ceiling. Like Harrison, these women exposed their hopes and fears for all to see.

The actual exhibit consisted of black and white photographs of women in the workshop accompanied by the large panels. Some women wrote about past physical and emotional abuse while others discussed positive memories.

Harrison’s books give an intimate look into her life that lets the reader see both imperfection and ultimate beauty. Her words can inspire and be identified with by women of all ages and backgrounds. Despina Statelova, a Guilford senior from Bulgaria, said, “I’m not even American and I hadn’t even considered that when I was reading it.”

The start of Harrison’s career was an accident. She started writing a journal as a requirement for a college course and took a chance by attempting to have it published. In her speech at Salem College, she spoke about how she never felt like she was good at anything. Ironically enough, she is good at writing about those very feelings of uselessness.

In her first book, Spilling Open, Harrison writes, “We are all facing choices that define us. No choice, however messy, is without importance in the overall pictures of our lives. We all at our own age have to claim something, even if it’s only our own confusion. I am in the middle of growing up and into myself.”

Harrison does an amazing job of speaking to the lost, the weak, the insecure, the scared, and the brave woman in all of us. It is comforting to hear one’s own thoughts scribbled out by someone else. It makes us feel less alone.

Actor Hilary Swank wrote the foreword for Harrison’s second book, in which she said, “We are connected through an intertwining sameness called the struggles and joys of finding and becoming our authentic selves. When I read her words, I felt acknowledged for my journey and for being a woman in these complex times.”

“I was struck by the way she created her journals,” said Statelova. “I liked the way she used collage, drawing, and writing to create a very intimate form of expression that doesn’t seek perfection or beauty as it is generally perceived. Her images leave me awe-stricken. I could stare at them for a long time and personally relate to them.”