Motherhood and Women and Power

One of the things that has stuck with me from my time at Omega Institute last weekend is the power of mothers.  A daunting number of the speakers had been abused during their childhoods and were damaged so much from their experiences.  Several asked the question, "Why didn't anyone protect me?  Where was my mother?"  In a couple of cases, it was the mother who abandoned the child and left her stranded, caring for her younger siblings or at the very least for herself.

The most moving example of the pain a mother can cause her child was given by the young woman from South Africa (I wish I knew her name, but she isn't listed in the presenters and I didn't write it down - I was too caught up listening to her to take note of it!  I think it might have been Samu Khumalo).  Samu was 19, raised in a township in utter poverty.  Her mother had 4 children, I think. Samu was the oldest.  Her mother, starting from when this young woman was 12, would leave their shelter and stay with various and sundry men, leaving Samu to take care of her siblings.  She managed to get through high school and wanted more for herself than life seemed ready to offer her.  I'm forgetting the details of her story but it had something to do with starting a group to empower girls and doing theater.  She got involved in Eve Ensler's play "I am an Emotional Creature."  She was telling us about her life and broke down in tears, "I don't know why my mother doesn't love me.  I don't know what to do.  I am a good girl.  I have done all I can.  I have cared for my siblings.  I did well in school.  I don't understand."  She was sobbing, wracked with the pain of her abandonment by her mother.  It was heart-wrenching seeing her pain and knowing there is no way to get past it other than to allow oneself to feel it just as she was doing with us.  I was glad she had so many sisters, 500 of us, there to witness her pain and to hold her in  our warm embrace.

Another presenter spoke of being abused by her stepfather for many years without her mother doing anything about it.  B. didn't know why her mother didn't do anything - how could she NOT have known.  This question stayed between them for a lifetime until B's mother was nearing death.  Then, finally, at the urging of her therapist, B told her mother what had happened.  Her mother, always a loving and wonderful woman, came through.  She told B, forcefully, "You are no longer alone.  You do not have to carry this alone anymore.  I am here for you."  What a gift to B to hear those words from her mother.  It sounded like it was exceedingly healing.  We were all there for her as well, feeling the longing of our own hearts to hear just the right words from our mothers before they die.

I wonder about mothers and their power over their children.  An acquaintance who worked with girls in a residential treatment center indicated his astonishment that children almost always want to go back to their mothers, no matter how poorly treated they have been.  They need their mothers, their love, their nurturing.  When they don't get it, there is a void in their lives which must be filled one way or another.  Some children are fortunate enough to find substitutes.  Or they have an inner strength which defies understanding and they grow up to be incredible people, tempered by the pain of their childhood.  Others never get what they need.  They feel empty, and they search for that love and approval for the rest of their lives.

"Thirty Seconds Old" - my younger son and me 30 seconds after giving birth to him.

As my children were growing up, it was difficult for me to fathom that I could possibly have as much impact on my children as my mother did on me or her mother did on her, but logically I suppose that must be the case.  How could it not be?  My prayer is that they know I love them unconditionally and accept them no matter what.  I want them to be happy.  I want them to feel fulfilled in their lives, whatever that takes.  I don't care whom they love - man or woman or in between, black or white or brown or whatever.  It just doesn't matter.  What matters is that they find sustainable joy in their lives and that they feel good about who they are.  They don't have to answer to me, just to themselves.  I want them to be able to come to me with their burdens and lay them down at my feet.  I will help however I can.  And I also trust that they have the wherewithal to figure out their own solutions.  I can't know what's right for them.  I can listen gently and compassionately and can, perhaps, help them find their way to their own needs and desires, but I cannot know what they need.  It would presumptuous of me to try to convince them to act a certain way or marry a certain person or whatever.  Who am I to know?!  It's difficult enough for me to discern my own path.  How can I presume to know that for another? 

My children have had pain in their lives.  Both of my sons have had life-saving operations.  My younger son's operation left him with some life-altering repercussions.  It was painful going through the operations with them as the responsible adult because I couldn't know if they would live or be permanently handicapped or physically or psychologically scarred.  It was mind-blowingly painful to be present to their experiences and know there was truly nothing I could do for them other than be there and manage my own anxiety sufficiently well to be able to be present to them.  I couldn't make it better.  I couldn't heal them.  I was helpless  I had no control.  For a woman raised with a strong need to control things, this was a very tough lesson.  I learned to surrender and to trust that all would be well, one way or another.  And it is.  My sons are splendid men.  They have scars, but they wear them well.  They are stronger men for the operations they have had.  They have worked with their adversity and turned it into strengths.  I am proud of them and so happy when we spend time together.  My heart bursts with joy.

Nuzzling her Baby

And my daughter - she had no operations.  She's the middle child and has had more than one birthday when one of her brothers was in the hospital and her parents were completely preoccupied.  She's sweet and loving and compassionate and also a tigress.  She is wonderfully intense and fabulous and committed to important causes.  She's been a vegan since she was 11 or 12, despite my unwillingness to prepare two meals for the family to meet her needs.  Instead she became a wonderful cook and baking is now one of her strong passions.  She is a strong woman who knows her mind.  Open-hearted and compassionate, very self-aware and knowledgeable, not to mention intelligent as can be, she is set to make a huge difference in the world.  And, best of all, she will still cuddle up to me on the couch as we watch a movie and will put her arm around me as we walk down the street, and will let people know she thinks I'm cool.  What more could a mom ask?

Beautiful Woman

Sometimes I wonder what my kids think of me - when they were kids, I was in the process of learning to paint, and my subject matter was usually the nude - pregnant women and men for several years.  My older son told me he refused to have friends over because he didn't want them to see the drawings.  Later though, when he was in college, he took some of my artwork to his apartment.  It was a set of three drawings of women's breasts.  When people would comment on them, he'd quip, "Yeah, those are my mom's breasts."  (They weren't mine - I just drew them.)  He got a kick out of seeing their response.  I also was outrageous and did Contact Improvisation, a form of dance which is all about the interaction between two people and the space between them.  I often had fellow dancers over who would lounge all over each other, draped as if people were just other pieces of furniture.  The kids took it in stride but as they got older they let me know they thought it was weird - "Mom, it's like clothed sex."  Then my daughter ended up at Oberlin where Contact started and had friends who did it there.  I think that normalized it a tiny bit, but she still wasn't interested for herself.  I guess they had the grace to accept me as I was, even though I was "weird".  Perhaps it gave them permission to follow their own bliss and do what they wanted to without having to worry about conforming to the societal norm.  Neither I nor their father could be accused of having done that horrible thing!

I think my kids think I'm cool.  My daughter said as much when she told me her friends thought I was cool because I gave her the book Cunt to read.  I wanted her to get more comfortable with her body.

They also know I have limits and can be strict - or was when they were kids.  I don't drink much alcohol at all, so it's a big deal if they see me with a glass of wine at dinner or hear I had one. They know how I feel about drugs - I'm not a big fan.  So I know they think I'm a bit of a stickler about those things.  Oh well.  Better that than a raving alcoholic who passes out each night...

I was strict too. My older son had a group of friends over one night for a sleepover.  They called themselves nerds, and it was true.  Their idea of a great night was bringing over a bunch of computers and networking them together so they could play computer games all night.  As long as I provided sufficient junk food, they were in heaven.  I didn't interfere much - just went down to let them know when I was going to sleep so they'd keep it down.  They were good kids.  One night, though, as I was going to sleep, I heard noises outside around 1 AM.  The gate creaked open then clicked shut.  I waited a moment then went downstairs to see what was up.  I asked where everyone was.  They told me they were in the bathroom - 2-3 big guys in a 16 sq ft bathroom?  Doubtful.  I gave them the eye and asked where they really were.  Finally someone confessed that they'd gone for a walk to 7-11, about a mile away, at 1 in the morning.  I was pissed.  They knew better.  I didn't know what to do.  I was a single mother with two younger kids in the house as well as these 14-15 year old boys.  I didn't know what these kids might be up to.  So I called the police to ask them to help me out.  They came over to question me to find out what was up.  While they were there, the boys showed up, sheepish, concerned, then freaked out.  The policemen were completely nice and kind.  They told the boys they were out after curfew and shouldn't have been.  They explained that they could have gotten into trouble and that it wasn't respectful of me to do that since I was responsible for them.  They suggested I call the boys' parents and have them come get them.  Yes, at 2 AM.  An hour or so later, some bedraggled and frankly confused parents showed up to pick up their chagrined boys.  My son was mortified and pissed.  No one seemed to understand why I had reacted how I had, but I felt completely justified.  The boys were on the brink of becoming teenagers and being able to drive.  I wasn't about to let them think they could get away with sneaking out at night from my house, even if their reason was completely innocuous.  Needless to say, I wasn't the most popular parent from then on out, but the kids respected me with a healthy fear.  My son is still friends with almost all of those people, and we get along well.  I like them completely, and I think they know they can count on me to be fair and even-handed and honest, if, perhaps, a bit over-reactive.  So what?  It was my job to protect my kids and keep them safe.  They didn't have to like me!

I know my heart is bonded to my children for eternity.  I would do anything possible for them.  Isn't it interesting that I can't quite wrap my mind around the idea that I mean so much to them too? 

How is it for you?  Did you get what you need from your mother?  If you're a mother, how do you perceive yourself vis-a-vis your children and their needs and their relationship to you?  How do you think they'd describe you?

Playing my way through the pain

This December I'll be Artist in Residence on a cruise sponsored by Semester at Sea through UVa.  We'll be traveling to the Bahamas, Jamaica, Colombia, Panama (going through the Panama Canal), Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Mexico and California.  It will be 25 days long.  It feels like one of the thrills of my life!  I love to travel but felt like perhaps my travel days were mostly over.  This awakened my Wanderlust again for sure!

I'll be teaching classes around the concept of a Visual Journal.  I'll teach Zendoodles (patterns) to decorate the journal with, Composing Photographs Successfully, Blind Contour Drawing, Modified Blind Contour Drawing, Drawing Basic Shapes, One Point Perspective, along with the basic concept of Visual Journaling.  Since I've never kept a Visual Journal, I thought it would be a good idea for me to keep one between now and then!

Generally when I use a sketchbook, I am very careful to create beautiful drawings which I'm comfortable showing others.  I put myself under pressure to make them "good" and don't give myself any room to play or experiment.  I bought a gorgeous leather-bound journal when I was in Venice.  I'm proud of myself for actually using it, but, again, I've only used it to make beautiful art (or as pretty as I can make it!)  I decided I need a change of pace.

While shopping for supplies for the classes for the cruise, I glanced through some of the lesson plans Dick Blick offers on their website.  One of the ones I happened upon is for making a sketch book using raw canvas and acrylic paints.  It looked simple enough so I decided to modify it and make one just like the one I got from Venice except with a canvas, not leather, cover.  And I'd get to decorate it however I wanted. 

I thought about doing the color field art like Dick Blick suggested, but that didn't interest me so much. Instead I gravitated to doing patterns all over it.  That took a couple of days but provided me with so much pleasure and concentrated joy.  I did do a color field painting on the inside but then decided I didn't like it at all - too busy and uninteresting so I painted over what I'd done with purple paint on one side and red on the other.  I put quotes which are important to me there so I can read them when I need inspiration or courage or whatever.

Then I went to the local art store, Main Art, where they have a terrific selection of papers and allowed myself to get whatever spoke to me.  $50 later, I had about 8 different kinds of paper.  The primary one, and what they used in the Venice sketchbook, is RFK Rives, but I also included some MiTientes pastel paper in different colors, some mulberry paper, other Asian papers with cool patterns, tracing paper, glassine, parchment, watercolor paper, Denril (used with markers, I think), and who knows what else?!  I spent the rest of that day tearing the paper to the right size to fit into the book (10"x14" - one page is 10"x7").  Then I grouped those into 4 sheets each which folded over to make 16 pages (2 sides of 8 pages each).  I asked Chris to show me how to use the drill press then used it to drill holes not only in the cover but also in each of the 8 packets of pages (I have approximately 128 sides of paper to use in the finished journal - some packets have more than 8 pages because some of the papers are very thin.)  Then I went to Michaels where I found some thread/string that seemed strong enough to use to bind it then figured out how the other one is bound and sewed up my journal.  I hope it'll hold!  If it doesn't, I can always re-do it.

Pleased with myself, I was ready to sit on my laurels for a while - months - years - who knows? - and admire my pretty work, but I recognized the trap I was setting for myself - this is a journal to USE! not one to just look at and smile cuz it's so pretty.

I boldly did a gesture drawing of the roses Chris gave me for our wedding anniversary last week - mostly wilted, but still pretty - then painted it with watercolor.  Then, boldly, I wrote all over the page.  I wrote a promise to myself that I will use this journal for PLAY and EXPERIMENTATION.  Anything else is a cop out and will be a betrayal of what it is for.   I'm going to make notes on each picture about what I'm doing and why,and I'm going to use all sorts of different materials. 

The second one I did was a total experiment - on parchment, I wrote with  Micron pens I'd found at Michael's on sale -  orange and green - and drew impatiens from a planter on my deck.  This morning I painted them with watercolors.  I found out that parchment isn't all that fond of liquid, but the colors show up brilliantly, and the watercolor dries faster than I expected it would given that it just sits on the surface for a while and puddles.  It's very different than watercolor paper.

Here's what my studio looks like now.  It's a mess with everything sprawled around me, but I love it!  Color pencils, acrylics, pastel pencils, brushes of every description, a book to look at, my journal, drawing tools, flowers, micron pens, a plethora of toys!

I also decided to copy a picture by Frank Lobdell.  It's from a book Chris gave me for Christmas.  Lobdell does figurative work and abstracts with patterns so Chris thought it might give me some ideas as to how to combine the two or move between the two or whatever.  I don't like his work a whole lot, but it was helpful to copy the picture.  I find that to be a good exercise because I learn how other artists work - it makes me use different materials in different ways.  For this one I used acrylics, pastel pencils, color pencils, charcoal pencil, and even a conte' crayon.  After I finished copying his, I decided to play with the concepts on my own.  That's the piece on the right.  I don't consider it finished, but I had fun working with it and look forward to getting back to it tomorrow.  That's the best feeling - looking forward to getting back into the studio the next day.  I've missed that lately.

I'm intentionally not cropping these pictures and making them all pretty, because that's precisely NOT the point!  It is incredibly difficult for me to let myself be messy and to do something which doesn't look precisely perfect - or as perfect as I can let it be.  I think that's one reason I've been in a slump lately - I haven't been allowing myself to experiment or to make mistakes.   I've been creating beautiful work, but the parameters I've been giving myself - to accurately represent what's in front of me - have been stultifying.

I'm also taking Figure Drawing at the Visual Arts Center of Richmond.  You might think I'd be good at that already, but frankly, I'm not.  I can copy 2-D things that are in front of me.  Drawing from life is not yet in my skill set.  I'm rectifying that.  Thomas Van Auken is the teacher I'm working with.  Thankfully he's very good.  He has us doing gesture drawings out the wazoo.  I've already used up most of a pad of newsprint in 2 weeks.  That's fine.  I'm also going to the Friday evening sketching sessions which anyone can come to so I can get extra practice.  I am determined to learn to represent the figure in a way I adore from life.

It's been a very difficult few weeks, feeling somewhat depressed and frustrated and in a lull, but I feel like following these gentle leadings and letting myself PLAY will be the key to moving through the muck and stuck and into something fun and interesting and compelling again.   

Hopefully this sense of adventure will keep me from looking like the self portrait I did last week and will keep me feel enlivened and curious and joyful.  That is, after all, the reason I quit my well-paying job to do my art full time - because the joy I felt doing it overrode any objections I could possible experience - if I'm not letting myself feel that joy, I should move on to something else.

It's painful for me when my creativity and drive are subdued and I can't access them.  I have learned to just let myself ride it out, but that doesn't mean I like it!  I'm hoping that treating myself gently and letting myself play will be the key to transforming the pain into joy.