Painting and Drawing
This is one of the series "Three Mothers." This represents the experience I had as a mom, a long time ago, and my thoughts about friends that are new moms now. And I guess, in part, it represents my wish to be a mom of a little one again.
About 10 years ago, I was making lots of art about babies and motherhood. This was the same time that my son, Matt, was 16 years old and moved to Long Island to live with his grandparents. I missed him terribly. I was also just starting a relationship with Dale who didn't want to have kids. Committing to Dale meant giving up the opportunity to ever have any more kids. During that time, I found some drawings by a mentally ill artist, Oskar Herzberg (https://www.psychiatrie-erfahren.de/eigensinn/museumneu/seite_oskar_herzberg.htm)
I made a drawing in my sketchbook that was based on his drawings.
Now that we have this big art studio at Backtrack Studios, there's lots of space to make big art. This summer I started a project where I'd stretch big rolled paper out on the wall and make one big painting each month. The idea is to not have any real expectation... just to be as free as possible and paint whatever I can during that month. My first painting was a landscape- also from the same sketch book page. Then I thought that I'd like to paint all three of the moms with babies... so I stretched three big pieces of paper to do that. The background is black and scribbly-- like the color we see when we close our eyes. Or in darkness. It's how I sometimes imagine the space outside of ourselves-- the gulf between "me" and the rest of the world.
How do they make me feel? I guess, a little unsettled. I feel glad that I finished them. I'm glad that they're bold and expressive. I wonder how they make other people feel?