Mother

My morning started with a green apple, I don't like green apples but I also don't like wasting food so I swallowed it. A elder in my family recently said “I swallowed all my pain from my mother because I didn’t want to hurt her” I told them I never wished to swallow any of my pain .I guess this is from where this painting sprang on me. I started this painting just as a practice, something to just experience, something to exercise. I saw a baby, then I saw a girl, then a woman of old age, and that made me think about the Hollow babies of Los Bocas near Teopantecuanitlan. Which have both features of elderly and babies. An essence of Janus-like features these dual interpretations of youth and age which were also a common motif during pre-colonial Mesoamerica and during the european middle ages. Janus being the word in which January is derived a nod to the Roman myth/god in which explored doorways, beginnings, transitions and endings. This exploration of duality of harboring both love and pain, naivety, and wisdom. Motherhood and childhood harbors new found understanding of the compromises of love- my mother comes to mind, her mother and her mother.

Mother? why do you only allow God to see you cry? I thought of the crying little girl that lives in most mothers- I thought about how often they swallow their tears and press them into silence, bitterness, rage, and most often wisdom. So then I painted this, or in better words played with this, and I hope in some way the acknowledgment of that little girl can be seen when I look at my mother, or her mother, or when I even think of the mothers I hadn’t been able to speak to in words. I hope this acknowledgment becomes a doorway so less women in my family and in my life won’t have to swallow anything but what brings them true contentment.