Process of Grief. “I feel so depressed” I say to myself. “I’m so tired” I say as I yawn a big mouth yawn. Trying to exercise, to eat, to stay up past 7:30pm, to not snap at my children. Take a deep breath. In the nose, out the mouth. “Why am I saying these things to myself, about myself?” It’s not normal? Is it just PMS? Is it just not having enough free time to myself? Or am I this way? Is the world the way I think it is? What’s true? What’s not? What matters? What doesn’t? I find myself several times picking up my phone to check Facebook , to see if anyone posted anything, to read about what horrors are going on in America and around the world. To be reminded of scum or told to just forget about it, don’t think about it. I forget that I deleted my Facebook account. And then I feel relieved I am not part of that right now. My heart is starting to beat fast, this was supposed to be a time of relaxation. Jack and Fiona are taking their nap; the house is quiet. I’ve worked in my studio, taken a shower, and here my mind goes again, in the loop. I think, “I should be happy.” Why am I so down? The election has taken a real toll on me, the Trump presidency and the Bannon appointment. I feel like I’m panicking. I could try to make myself believe I’ll be fine so I shouldn’t worry so much. I don’t want to put my head in the sand like an ostrich. I don’t want to become a medicated zombie. I don’t want to go crazy. Where is there balance? I remember growing up and hearing my mom and her boyfriend talk about Carter and Reagan. They said Reagan was bad. I didn’t know what that meant, I just Knew our house didn’t like Reagan. When I became old enough to vote my mom had stopped voting. “Why mom? How can you not vote?” I asked her. She told me it didn’t matter anymore, that everyone was corrupt. Around this same time she told me she “Hated white people”. I wonder what my mom would say if she were alive today. Maybe she wouldn’t be as surprised as me. I was naïve. I thought things were getting better, but they were festering. Now I’m festering, trying to keep a grip. I am in the midst of raising twins in the heart of a dramatic developmental stage. During the breaking apart of mother and baby, I still want Jack and Fiona to be my little babies, they still want me to baby them. But they are getting bigger and finding their own independence and individuality. I am also changing, some by choice, some not. I must be more stern now, Jack and Fiona are heavy, strong, loud. They need direction and supervision almost all the time. The only time it’s easier now is at the park. I can sit and eat my lunch while they run off and play on the structures. It’s relaxing. There’s just a dark cloud hanging over my heart and mind. I feel like my mom died all over again, that type of shock. I feel like crying.
Category: memory of mom
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Oh my Gosh! Tonight is the night! Carl and my show is opening at The Fourth Wall Gallery! The show looks awesome. I have made some new works for the bin, which now will include works over $250 because they are just so good! Some will now be $350, which is still a great deal. I really hope we get some art lovers who will loosen those purse strings! Buy Art! I have included two of my “Notebooks” in the show. They are “Journey into Abstraction” and “The lives of the Painters” they are part of a series of “Scrap Books” I’ve been working on since 2014. I sometimes call them my “Note book project”, or “re-purposed journal project”. Some of the books created also fall under a project I am currently involved in with GAP, “The Global Art Project”. This project is called Dis/locations; (The Lives of The painters falls under this umbrella as a solo entry)
“Journey into Abstraction” was started in December 2014. I was beginning to explore non-objective abstract painting. I would lay out 20 or 30 pieces of paper at a time, some of it re-purposed prints, some new paper; I worked mainly on the floor, using acrylic paint, watercolor, charcoal, graphite, water based oils, reacting to marks and colors. When I started thinking too much the work was ruined. I am interested in Wabi Sabi philosophies and kept the ideas in my mind as working; mistakes became the work, running off the edges, stream of consciousness, making marks from my gut. Out of hundreds of paintings I selected my “most successful” and put them in this journal. It is a documentation of time and exploration of paint.
“The Lives of the Painters” began in the actual book, The Lives of the Painters. It was an old book my mom had; I found it at her house after she had died. I always wanted to do something with it but was intimidated to work in a “Book”. I got acquainted with the process in an old medical dictionary that was part of a colab GAP book. Carl had made a few marks, then passed it to me. Every day I painted I would paint in that book as well, or draw. I passed that book back to Carl and we started two more collaborative books that belonged to the same batch of old books I found at my mom’s house. One was an Italian Poem book. Working in these books, I felt connected to my mom, I thought about how she would have loved to participate in this project. I started my solo, “The lives of the Painters” almost a year ago. The first thing I reacted to was the book was filled with male artists only. I got mad several times and too aggressive with the book. It didn’t take long before the whole binding was ruined and fell apart. I was disappointed. But I decided to use a black artists sketch book like I did in “Journey Into Abstraction” to save what I could, which turned out to be a lot. In this book I added collage and work on both sides of the pages. I would attach one side and respond to it on the other page, much like we do when working collaboratively with another person. I was very happy with the end result. I never work in my studio now without working on my notebook projects. It’s part of my process.
I would like visitors to the gallery to feel free to look through my books, take time with them, touch them.
Dirty Laundry Blog by Jennifer Hynes 