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www.jennyhynes.com/

Dirty Laundry Blog by Jennifer Hynes

  • 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.

    IMG_7303

    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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  • A journal: 20 Days during the Pandemic. Getting back in the studio. Daily Writing and Studio Practice September 21st to October 10th 2020.
  • Blog
  • Catitudes
  • Dirty Laundry Blog
  • My Peloton version 2
  • Portfolio
  • Random Tips for twin parents

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