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In the beginning an absurd choice; Into the fire; The eyeopener; Exposure and candor; Courage; Restore sanity. Together they have spawned a series of important works that, timing wise, depict my passage through divorce. They also could relate to birth and the healing I took birth for, per Ondrea and Stephen Levine.
In The Beginning 1:
For the Voice and Vision art class, my teacher gave an assignment to randomly cut out words from periodicals, books, etc., and weave them into a composition. This is what I came up with:
This was my second exploration using sticks dipped in acrylic ink and applied to paper. This one is called Flock.
My primary SFAI teacher’s forte was in offering catalysts to spark creativity. In addition to starting off showing engaging artistic slides, for one class she supplied sticks of varying sizes and asked that we explore using them with different media on paper, canvas, or other surfaces. The first result was this large acrylic on paper composition which I named Web.
An artist friend and I took a class. For one of the assignments she made a 9 piece grid which I thought was wonderful. The last piece had the words “It Didn’t Work” written in large, very distinct letters. She did not feel happy with how the grid turned out, hence, the superimposing of this phrase at the end. The consensus of opinion was that it was brilliant and right on especially in terms of the meaning - the choices we mere mortals make and the outcomes from time to time. In fact, I was just dealing with a situation, and I found myself saying simply, “It Didn’t Work.” There’s a certain, built-in acceptance which I find calming, kind of like “Oops.”
Oddly enough, she submitted this sole piece of the grid for entry into the SFAI art show alongside my submittal. They both got accepted by a curator from SF Moma. I wish I had a picture of hers.
Today I took Neil Gaiman’s lesson on “Deal With Writer’s Block.” The many messages resonated with accuracy such as when writing, be honest, finish and submit it. For starters, I realize I’ve been a bit stuck because of the fear of being honest. His mentioning it facilitated an aha moment, and I now have the title and book format that will help organize my writings and keep them flowing. And, as always, words inform my art and art informs my words.
As I mentioned, invisible labor was an issue during 24 years of marriage and 4+ years of divorce litigation relating to my value. For my sense of self, it was quite something to wrestle with this daily, weekly, monthly and yearly. Thwarted truth is never easy to tolerate.
This is a double-layered piece with it overlaying shh and be a good girl :
On Monday I attended this webinar with Eve Rodsky essentially about division of household labor during quarantine and beyond. It was extremely on-point and ultimately corroborative of what I need to express regarding my former life as a stay at home wife and mother. A nerve was struck when she spoke about invisible labor, an issue that haunted me throughout my married life and certainly divorce as it related to the financial settlement. In fact, during the proceedings, mindful of the judge pro tem’s unlimited discretionary power, at one point I suggested making a spreadsheet with a line-by-line item of each of my job titles and responsibilities, assign a corresponding yearly salary and multiply by 24 years. The response was a huge laugh and so the ridiculous battles continued culminating in the “rigged” outcome.
The following is a quote from the Harpers Bazaar article and link:
And just like that, no one ever asked a stay-at-home mom what she does all day ever again.
You can’t value what you don’t see right? Visibility = value, and the silver lining of a quarantine is that the full breadth of what women do for our families is more visible than ever.
https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a31912468/coronavirus-women-feminism-essay/
Explosive Color:
So far, I’m loving this community Dr. Dan Siegel started along with his weekly Friday talks to pep up people during the pandemic and beyond.
https://peppmwecommunity.drdansiegel.com/posts/why-we-built-pepp-mwe-up-community-for-you