I can’t wait to get to the studio! I’m almost there, tomorrow! I can feel myself standing in front of a piece of blank paper, mixed up some paint, paint brush and a drawing tool in my hands, music on, hours ahead of me, an infinity of space for creativity. Free to begin a new series of work for a show next year, a gallery space, a book. Nothing is standing in my way. I need patience and a new attitude for the days in between my work days. It’s hard, with the smell of stinky, fish, pots and pans staring at me, a dishwasher full of clean dishes and a sink full of dirty dishes, walls with drawing on them, toys scattered all over the floor. I can not pick up and clean everything all the time. What did I do before kids? What was my home like? How clean was it then when I thought it was dirty? Was it always clean, picked up? Was that stress I did not have? As Jack and Fiona get older, now almost four years old, the messes appear faster, it’s like Jack and Fiona need to live in chaos. Furniture that we’ve had for nine years, was in great condition, now in tatters. Chairs turned over, turned into forts. Cabinet doors broken, floors and doors warped from water damage in the bathroom when they played in the sinks with the stoppers in, they were supposed to be taking their naps. Dark mornings I am woke, “Mommy, my bed it wet”. I just want a few more minutes to lay under warm blankets. Did I ever think of any of this when I was going through infertility treatments? I thought I could keep my home organized when I had kids, I thought I could keep it clean. What I went through to have kids, the difficulty in raising kids, the way it takes over your whole existence, except those magical moments in my studio, is it worth it? Is it worth it for the sweet moments of pure joy, living life through a child’s eyes, learning about relationships and love like I never have before. Holding their sweet little hands, kissing them goodnight. Learning things about myself I could have never learned without becoming a mother. It is all worth it, to me. The house is here to be used, to be lived in. It’s not a museum. It doesn’t matter, it just stinks sometimes, like last nights fish dinner.
Category: Art and finding balance
-
A windy fall afternoon, the ground adorned with large light tan fig leaves with rusty tops. Pink and magenta bougainvillea leaves, wispy sticks and thick sticks. Deep red wine. Long legged dark brown spider crawling across the floor in the morning. Yellow school bus, purple sage. Studio full of paint, paint drips, paint splatters, dark, dirty charcoal, paintings, drawings, frags, all contained. Work leaves my studio, graduates, becomes contained in a frame, hangs, is looked at, is bought, is re-hung in a new location. The cycle repeats, spreading an idea, a concept, a mistake, a masterpiece. I remain, for now, to create, to paint, to write, to care for, to love. I circle on through the Fall, through the Winter, through the Spring, through the Summer. One year leads to the next. One years’ worth of work contained in my series “Never Enough Time”. From Autumn to Autumn, from days before Trump was elected. My studio gave me a refuge, a place to react and deactivate my murky days. To bring me back into focus, to work though my feelings and emotions, to come back into being a homemaker, a mother an artist. Practicing becoming me, a full version of me. Artist and Mother and Wife. I look at my work for this show, all together as a group. I have worked hard. I see my growth as an artist, aesthetically, an esthetic that is uniquely me. It’s beautiful and scary simultaneously. It’s my whole self, my innards and outers exposed for everyone to consume. It’s a glass of deep red wine on a late fall afternoon
-
A beautiful late June morning. Blue sky, cool breeze, I see a small bird on top of a tall tree, it just flew down, probably catching a bug. The chimes blow softly, I hear a chain saw off in the distance. My dog lays patiently on the floor waiting to be fed breakfast. My children are at preschool, my husband at work. In one hour, everything will change. Jack and Fiona will be home from school, the quiet will turn to laughing, playing, crying. A house of activity. Two paper plate turkeys still hang on the wall from last fall, Jacks is missing a gobbley eye. A few paintings they made last year hang next to the Turkeys, I can’t believe how long they’ve lasted with just scotch tape. Paintings that were created with little hands in a tiny moment in time. A moment behind us, never to come back. A moment of little babies making marks and eating paint. A moment so precious that we can never get back. The paintings now made by these young beings are becoming more conscious. They are not purely a chance to make a mess and explore the surprise of paint spilling and covering their little bodies, splattering and tasting. Sometimes now they even ask me to wipe their hands clean during a painting project. There’s still the occasional body painting.
I am a parent of children now, no longer babies; kids now who still need my full attention and love. When Fiona sat on my lap at the audiologist the other day, asking the doctor big girl questions about her hearing aid molds that were being made I was taken aback. She no longer sat there and just let the doctor squirt the mold making goo in her ears, Fiona wanted to know why and how. Her legs folded long over mine, her head right in front of mine. She wasn’t a baby I cradled in my arms trying to distract, nor a toddler I had to comfort, she was a big girl, still only three and a half years old, but aware of what was going on. I got a freight, I’m their parent, I thought. I have two kids. Having babies is one thing but kids? Strong, independent, smart, loving, kids. They are developing their own tastes and interests now. I balance between letting them explore and learn and grow and teaching them how not to behave without squashing their individuality or shaming them for doing things inappropriate in our society. It’s a difficult balance for me, I sometimes wonder if I would be considered a permissive parent. I hope I’m strict enough, I don’t want spoiled brats or entitled kids. It’s difficult to find the balance. At least I know they are loving and kind kids.
Dirty Laundry Blog by Jennifer Hynes 