This is a painting I don’t think has ever been included in my exhibitions. It is titled “Hold Me”. One collector assumed this painting had to do with a stance on abortion, which it does not. It is not political. It is deeply, deeply personal. I painted this in April of 1992, just a few months before my mother passed away. She was in the hospital at the time and stayed for five months, before returning home in August. She returned home for only a couple of days before heading back to the hospital where she passed the following day.
There are many things I could say about this painting and I’m not sure any of them would be right, as art has a way of bringing out such deep things that we have no words for. The thing I remember feeling mostly was fear and sadness and a strong need to curl up someplace warm and safe where I’d have a cushion between me and the hard parts of life. So many wrenchingly painful things were going on in my life at the time, aside from my mother’s imminent passing. I think this painting was my way of creating a safe haven for myself. It is a self-portrait. I wanted to feel safe.
Nothing about this painting was planned. I just started painting and before I knew it, all the colors, blending, forms, shading, and imagery were there before me. Often I feel myself gasp after it has emerged, as if it is a complete surprise to me what I’ve done, or what has come out of me without my seeing it beforehand.
I am not a mother and always knew since I was a little girl that I never would be. Not sure how. It wasn’t as much a decision as a knowing. As I grew older, it became a knowing that my art came first and with my health as it was and other issues with resources, I just simply wasn’t in a position to be a mother. Though I love children and always hoped to be in a position to adopt if I had ever found the right partner, which I did not. So I was never a mother.
That saying, “It’s never too late,” really does not always apply, as sometimes it IS too late. Time passes and there are certain things that simply are no longer possible and there is an acceptance that is necessary as we get older. There simply are doors that are closed to us that were once open, and old dreams we had that we now have to give up because they can never be. If we’re lucky, new dreams take their place which are more aligned with our older selves, things that are more doable for who we have become as we’ve aged and experienced so much of life. I’m in this place right now of having to watch the old dreams crumble while I wait for new dreams to come.
Not really sure why I wanted to include this in my blog. I did want to show it, as not many have seen it and I feel it is among my most important works. Perhaps I need to look at it to give myself that feeling now, in this most scary time in my life where I am recovering from strokes, have little support, am struggling in many ways to keep going, feeling the sting of grief, and when I’m reaching out for joy and lightness wherever possible because it really is so very important to come up for air and give oneself a breather during dark times. I’ve been doing bibliomancy and pick up random books for tidbits of wisdom and insight and comfort. I certainly don’t shy away from the tough stuff, rather I face it head on. But it’s good to take breaks and find the soft spots to curl up in. Maybe that is what this is about. I need to do that, right now.