Water is an important symbol in the history of the African American community that is rooted in the African Diaspora. Water has been seen as a symbol of purity, sometimes tied to the notion of baptism, birth, and renewal, to rites of passage, and to ancestral veneration. Water is also tied to the notion of spirit and power. In this painting, The Balancing of Water: A Tribute to Women is meant to convey the balance of these two things. All that women bear with their physical and spiritual bodies in a lifespan ground the efforts in this work to show strength and determination in the carrying of water by this young woman. Water is an important symbol in the African American community that is rooted in the African Diaspora. Water has been seen as a symbol of purity, sometimes tied to the notion of baptism, birth and renewal, to rites of passage, and to ancestral veneration. Water is also tied to the notion of spirit and power. In this painting, The Balancing of Water: A Tribute to Women is meant to convey the balance of these two things. All that women bear with their physical and spiritual bodies in a lifespan ground the efforts in this work to show strength and determination in the carrying of water by this young woman.