Painter Bisi Morton is an art educator who seeks to balance her job responsibilities with her passion to create. This pursuit of balance that all women seek in their lives is reflected in her painting that became this year’s Women of Influence honoree award.Morton’s piece “Covered” represents all women of all shades and colors while highlighting the orange of the Women of Influence signature pashmina given to each year’s honorees.“Literally there are layers of dark brown, mystic blues, warm reds, sunny yellows, cool tones of white and cream. In this magnificent experiment the mix became her color of skin and thus symbolizes us all,” Morton said. “The closed eye is the secret to living a balanced life. It's meditation, it's prayer, self-reflective, our quiet time, the few quiet moments we have before the house sleeps and wakes. Those intimate moments lead us to our source that keeps our uneven life balanced and wonderful.”Morton said orange to her represents the color of spiritual practice, meditation, compassion, energy, optimism, positivity, adventure, and creativity.“The woman's head is covered in the color orange and all it represents. She uses these positive affirmations for the protection of her mind, body and soul. She is covered, as we all are covered, by the essence of life and pursuit of wholeness; the common good for all is the covering color of orange.”This year marks the seventh year a local artist has been commissioned to create the Women of Influence award given to the honorees. This year, artists were asked to create a piece that draws inspiration from the signature pashmina that each honoree receives.“This is rather divine to me, basically a calling that pulled on my heart,” Morton said of creating the commissioned piece. “I know that YWCA is an incredible blessing to women and their children in need and the mission is to help women to keep trying, to start over and just never give up.”Morton said she’s honored to help celebrate this year’s Women of Influence.“The women who are selected for this honor are women of influence who refuse to be bystanders but rather take action, step up and do the work. Women who fight silent battles, wipe their own tears and the tears of others and assign mountains to be moved not for them, but for others to see that mountains can be moved. Why not celebrate greatness, why not congratulate the women who know without a shadow of a doubt, God is within them and they cannot fail. They are inspirational for us all to continue to pursue greatness for the benefit of all mankind.”You can see more of Morton’s art on Instagram @bisibowiemortonart.