A series depicting the transition from Maiden to Mother
MATRESCENCE:
noun.
Anthropologist Dana Raphael coined this term to describe the process of becoming a Mother.
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This is an interdisciplinary collection of works created in the years leading up to giving birth to my first child and becoming a mother.
Themes of this series include transmuting trauma, the mastery of self love, and transformational letting go to let new life grow.
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Mother Chrysalis. oil on canvas. 18"x30." 2022
This painting is a depiction of the metamorphosis that occurs in a woman as she is gestating a baby and becoming a new Mother. Each moment might present a new opportunity to molt, shed, metamorph, make new beginnings, mature, be reborn. Constantly creating ourselves. I feel this so strongly in this time. As we let go, we may also transform. Taking stock and perhaps aligning the pieces differently altogether. Releasing old paradigms in order to rebuild them within. Making room for new growth and renewal. Just like the Earth exemplifies through the seasons each year, we are also always in transition. Allowing the changes to unfold in rest. Like a caterpillar within a cocoon . Getting ready to spread new wings and soar into a whole new phase of life.
Creatrix Waiting to Crack Open. oil on canvas. 18"x24." 2022
This painting depicts the artist at work within herself in order to create a new life and new paradigm. Ensuring that she is aligned through her heart, womb and work in the world she is ready to crack open and allow whats to unfold emerge from the shell of protection. Whats to come of Motherhood on the other side is an unknown that she is at peace about.
Through The Birth Portal. 2022
Oil on canvas, dypdich, 24"x48"
This painting is a representation of the integration of male and female, the threshold that grants new life into the world, the importance of our connection to ancestors, and to our own inner child selves.
Cradle. Cow Pelvis, wool, cotton, hemp, light. 2022.
This piece was created as I pondered the structure of my pelvis as the first cradle for my baby. As I crocheted and wove around the bones I meditated on trusting that my pelvis would open when the time came to give birth.
The Way. Mycelium, nest, wings, wood. 2022.
Let thy spirit soar from the safety of it's nest and do the magical work it's meant to in the world.
Maidens Blood. Past sketchbooks with menstrual blood paintings and writings. 2016-2019.
Such a powerful substance that flows from the female body. It has a stigma for being icky or burdensome, but it is the body's cyclical ritual. Indicating health and fertility, this monthly building and shedding the womb does contains the essence that nurtures new life. If we can learn to love our bodies and the cycles that they undergo we can begin to see the pure magic of life. Listen in and observe to know when things are out of tune and maybe need some attention in the form of love. Our bodies listen to our thoughts and emotions...they respond when we appreciate them.
A Home Within. Wool, wood, beeswax, cotton. 2020.
This is a piece I made during the throes of the pandemic that represented the body as home. Almost two years later, someone saw it hanging in my home while I was pregnant and they asked if it was a pregnant person. I thought, wow, it does look like it! It hung in the Matrescence exhibit and was able to hold both meanings.
Matrilineage Marriage. Handmade dress with Great Grandmother Ruby's hand crochet doilies; performance prop. 2020-2021.
Making this dress was a way to leave my past relationships behind and remember to love myself first for the betterment of my union with another.
I am devoted to my own spirit with witness of my matrilineal ancestors and I have vowed to honor my creativity and exhibit self care in order to best show up for others that I love deeply.
This dress helped me transition from a time in my life when I was harboring unnecessary guilt, shame and unworthiness into a self empowered being that fills my own cup with enough love that it may runneth over.
The dress was also featured in a video called Submergence that I created to document the seach for my inner divinity and reunion with her. This video was on display in the Matrescence exhibition and viewed within the Sacred Red Womb.
Sacred Red Womb. Recycled fabrics quilted into a tipi skin. 700ft.sq. 2019.
I created this red tent to honor the sacred womb and hold space within for women to gather. It magically fit in the Gallery that hosted Matrescence and featrued a video projection within. Click here to watch the video. What an epic ceremony of loved ones circling in and around this sacred red womb until it was time for me to go home and give birth. I am still so grateful to all who came and celebrated before I opened my bones and womb to allow a sweet soul from the cosmos through.
Comfortably Making Room. 18x24. Watercolor on paper, stitched to canvas. 2022
What the body knows is immeasurable. All of our cells performing specific functions at once. The capacity for change and adaptation. The ability for the female form to shift and morf to accommodate and grow new life and then birth it into being is an entirely primal and yet so intricately designed process that can happen without any effort of the thinking mind. The body is intelligent.
Hanged Woman over Heart Lake. 24"x36" oil on canvas, 2021
Sometimes it's takes putting ourselves in an uncomfortable position in order to see our current predicament in a different way. Perhaps even upside down. This vulnerability can bring entirely new possibilities into our realm of perception. What do you see when you look into your reflection? If love stares back at you, then you've got a good thing goin.
I am the puppet master of my Story. Oil on canvas. 36"x60." 2020.
This painting depicts the relationship between subconscious and superconscious. Our cognitive ability to shape the way we perceive and thus enact our reality. Here I am visually translating my journey toward the virtues of peace, love and balance within. These virtues I have found through feeling the magic in the flap of a ravens wings, working in tandem with the waxing and waning of the moon, and constantly shedding and transmuting the toxins of trauma and trepidation into the very lifeblood and strength that propels me forward.
Knowing that foresight does not provide answers, only the willingness to withstand in the face of fear. The skies opened to reveal a precognition, I have lived this in dream. To breathe and move slowly while the heart rate reacts to adrenaline. To tend and take care while the body heals. To remember my inner divinity. This painting weaves layers of my consciousness, teaching me how to live my own story. As within, so without.
