Dirty Laundry Blog by Jennifer Hynes

Cycles

January 27th, 2016
Don’t have much time to write. 7:22AM Wednesday morning. Can’t be late for Early Start, first sign language class starting this morning. Babies already awake calling “mama” between cycles of quiet, little screams, then “mama” Toast ate, coffee almost gone, only the super sweet part remains at the bottom of the cup. The sky is striated silver, grey, light pink. It has the look of what it is, a cold late January day. Lunch needs to be made, breakfast for the babies, dressing all of us, changing diapers, get in the car, get Billy in the car so I can walk her after sign class on the hill behind early start because I won’t have time to come home before the babies are done at school. Get babies back in car, hope they make it home without falling asleep so I can put them down for a good nap so I can maybe work in my studio on naptime paintings. Babies wake up, need to clean mess from yesterday, made vegetarian stew, my first loaf of bread in my new breadmaker. Not as easy as I envisioned. Feed babies breakfast, go through the bouts of whining, crying, pooping, hugging, playing, reading, loving. Time for bed, books, bath. Unless they have a big poop now, then They need a bath now, no bath tonight. Sigh. “Mommy”

“Yes, I’m coming”

These are the cycles of my days, cook and clean, just part of existence, like breathing, like living and dying.

Goal: find moments within the cycles to breath, to admire the dirt on the trail I’ll be walking on, the vultures on their trees by Early Start with their wings stretched out wider than I am tall.

To live the cycles of life to the fullest even when it seems there’s no time. When I feel I need an extra hand but don’t have one. I will get through it. There will be time again to write and paint.

It’s really time for me to go now!
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Cleaning out the cobbwebbs

January 26th, 2016
Jacks starting to call for me, it’s 7:21 Tuesday morning. Fog sits peacefully in the sky outside the kitchen windows. Mind foggy from sleep and yesterday’s whirlwind of activity. There was cleaning to do from the weekend, a visit from Linda, Fiona’s teacher, I also had to clean my studio and organize my work for my studio visit. I painted my wall, but didn’t have the same color, it still looks better, quieter. I threw away a bunch of paper work that was on the floor, I didn’t even look at it and now I remember there were a few things I’m still working on. That’s ok, I have more in my pile of, I like, but not a favorite/ not sure/ not done. My studio is looking really nice, but busy. I hope it’s not too busy. I am going to edit my recent work one more time, I have some really beautiful abstract paintings. I’m excited, and proud of myself. I feel confident, (with bouts of self-doubt). I can’t wait to go through my framed work from my two shows in 2014, it will be so interesting in relationship to my most recent work. The progression from figurative to non- figurative has been a success. I’ve written about this before, several times, but before 2013 I had to have a figure or head in everything I did. I was obsessed, with the nose, the mouth, disappearing figures, ghosts, angst. I was not free, my mark making and use of color and line have always been loose, but I was trapped in a pre-determined outcome of everything I painted, it had to have a figure or face. Now, after journeying into non-figurative work when I do reconnect with my figures they are much stronger, It’s also a lot easier to let them go. While cleaning my studio I was distracted by new ideas I got while organizing. My deconstructed Dada book is revealing so much to me, teaching me.

On Sunday night, I was looking at Art books in the living room with the babies. It felt so good, I used to spend lots of time doing this, but this is the first time I tried to include Jack and Fiona. It was so quiet and peaceful, they responded to Dubuffet with smiles and laughs. I found a paper, “Working with Found Objects” tucked inside a page of my Raushenberg book. I started reading it, it talked about the Dada artists and ideas for projects, then I realized I had written it, this was a strange feeling, the paper is ten years old, I wrote it in my fiber sculpture class. It sounded so optimistic, myself before my mom died, before all the baby stuff. My inner change revealed to me. It’s like my paintings and writing are a map of myself and my life. It’s amazing to see the change in both. Well it’s 8:00am, time to get the show on the road. Babies need to be dressed, lunch made and babies driven to school.
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Christopher Part Two

January 23rd, 2016
Saturday morning. It’s already 7:14AM, don’t have much time to write before the babies wake up. Alan is awake and is playing something on the IPAD breaking my concentration. My coffee is boiling, should I add more cream? Yes, good idea, now it’s more drinkable. I can write, for a minute. Thinking about the first time I wrote about Christopher, last year, February, the first month I started my blog. I thought that I wrote a lot, when I went back to read it recently I found a short absent piece. The experience of getting pregnant at fifteen and hiding it for nine months was traumatizing. It deserves so much more than a short, quick, piece. It affected my life in so many ways, it will need to be a series of entries, through time, time to process and respect. The memories first resurfaced when I was trying to get pregnant, Christopher was born without a brain and died six months after birth, I was sure that would happen to me again. The doctor assured me it was an anomaly, the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck in utero, just unlucky. I carried Christopher with me for nine months, he heard all my thoughts, my cries, felt my isolation, my fear. Could he process any of this without a brain? Or was he like a giant worm in my womb? Living off my blood, he kicked me, I hit him back. I punched my stomach, crying, desperate. I had to hide my naked body, seal it off. Four months into the pregnancy, back flat on a park bench, having sex with a boy, he asks me “are you pregnant?” I say no. I feel sick, dirty, I sneak back into my house, down some Nyquil. Next day put on my stretch pants and a big sweater and go to school. Living a lie, hiding everything that was true, revealing emptiness. Only five more months and this will be over. And right now, present time, I have to end this Blog post. I can hear Jack and Fiona, awake, calling “Mommy.” Alan just headed down, I still hear them calling “Mommy” I hope Alan changes the diapers for me! The sun just peered over the horizon line and through the clouds onto my face, I see spots. Now it’s fading back behind a dark grey cloud. I don’t want to get annoyed if Alan didn’t change the diapers, I’ll let that feeling be like the sun and the cloud, fade back. It’s not worth the stress. I will go down now.
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Cycles

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Cleaning out the cobbwebbs

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Christopher Part Two

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