Dirty Laundry Blog by Jennifer Hynes

Sanchez Art Center 50/50 Show installed! Plus new work in progress

August 26th, 2019
The freeway hums in my body,

But its only a memory. A fear filled memory of speed, guard rails, clear roads, fast, then sudden breaks.

I do fine, day to day. I get things done. I have positive interactions with people in my community.

I set up my 50/50 piece at the Sanchez Art Center yesterday. It looks fantastic.

I started a new series of stitched portraits. I’m excited by my new stitched work.

Crushing anxiety, fear.

Feelings.

Sadness. Traumatized.

Traumatized and paranoid.

My eyes hurt. I know its just fear. Anxiety.

I’ve become a person who doesn’t even imagine a time I would live without anxiety medication.

I used to think I would someday feel relaxed. Now I never have those thoughts. I feel like I live in a constant state of fear, anxiety, and paranoia.

In the car yesterday, I had a moment where I felt like I couldn’t breath. I wasn’t driving.

Was it a dream? Is the fear my imagination?

Is the sadness real?

I try not to think about the rainforest burning or the sad girl crying on the playground this morning when I dropped my kids off. Her cries echoed in my mind though out today.

My fear the way other people drive and get mad and are wound up tight.

I’m scared. I know others are too. In their own ways. Going through their own depressions and hardships.

I know it’s not easy.
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Late Autumn wind whips, Sadness Falls on my Shoulders

August 23rd, 2019
A heavy load of sadness falls on my shoulders. Late Autumn winds blow, I listen to John Coltrane Quartet. My kids are at school, I have an hour of downtime left. Not really downtime. I’m writing my Artist Statement for the Sanchez Art Center 50/50 Show. My theme for this piece is treating my panels like I do my Artist Notebooks. Working spontaneously, daily, including figurative and abstract work. The weekend I brought my panels home my family’s world changed forever. I always work in a place of mystery, exploring shadows, a dark stain that appears from dripping paint. A figure abstracted, a face disappearing.

The night I began to work on my pieces, followed a day words, the shape of words that morphed into unrecognizable meaning. My daughters hearing level changed significantly. We had always used sign language for back up with the hearing aids. But this weekend the hearing aids were useless. After I put the kids to bed, Fiona has a twin brother, Jack, I went to my studio. I had prepped the panels the day before with Gesso and mat medium. I had organized the collage materials, paints, adhesives, charcoal, and other drawing materials. I had decided on a palette.

I started making marks on each panel. I added paint and collage. I added and took away. It was getting late. I started to panic. How would I operate the next day? I kept trying to wrap things up. The hours went by, my back hurting my brain fatigued from emotion and creative output. I felt like I was in a state of mania. I cried and laughed at the same time because I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop; I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep. I worked on my panels obsessively instead of daily and meditatively, like I had intended.

Through the creation of this series I grieved, I worried, and obsessed about how our life was changing and had empathy with how my daughter and my son were feeling during the transition. In my studio I escaped the anxiety and enjoyed working on my pieces. It was a special place for me. I removed and added to the panels, I treated them in ways I could never treat my Artist Notebooks. One day I hated what I had. I got a hand sander and started sanding and sanding. Paint and collage being stripped away. What was revealed was something beautiful, abstract, and mysterious. The bottom layers from weeks prior, maybe layers I hid because they were too raw, too emotional or not mysterious, fading, disappearing enough. In that way, my panels are like my Artist Notebooks. They are accidents, experiments, and mistakes.
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First Days

August 22nd, 2019
I write this in my tub. Soaking the past 12 hours away. I’ve been up since 3:30AM.

First Day of Kindergarten for Jack and Fiona. First day of American Sign Language instruction at Berkeley Community College for me.

Drop off and Freeway, each with its own pulse. I saw smashed cars on the opposite side of the Freeway, I can’t believe anyone could have survived,

I heard on the traffic report a truck was on fire on my side of the freeway. The brake lights went on forever as the Eastshore freeway merged with HWY 80.

I took the Carlson exit. Held back sadness as memories of Nations, the Wild West Gun Shop, San Pablo Ave, My moms old house. I miss her.

I took Solano Ave, back streets all the way to Berkeley. I made it with time to spare.

First subject. Deaf culture, ASL history. Thoughts of my daughter running through my head. Her questions lately,

“Why are people deaf?”

“Do they not have ears?”

“What makes them deaf?”

I try to explain. Yesterday, at the SF ZOO playground. She sticks to me. Talking to me, asking me questions.

Her brother, off making friends. Watching what the big kids do.

We look at the Hippo who puts on quite a show. Opening his mouth as wide as can be. The kids wanted me to watch them on the Carousel, I usually ride with them.

Are they turning into little, thoughtful, inquisitive minds? It’s all about Science and Identity. Between tantrums and immense fatigue. Where crying stubbornness have me saying,

“I don’t understand? Why are you acting this way?”

I check foreheads for fevers. I think they must be sick.

After ASL class today, after my jaw dropped. Seeing a lecture about your own daughter’s history, present tense, and future in a bonafide college course is a total trip. The things that led me here happened quickly once I started To mobilize.

Once my SEE sign classes were over and our time in the Total Communication classroom ended I decided to switch to ASL. At the time my daughter was still using two hearing aids. Then after everything happened, everything changed with what she could understand verbally, and my training to communicate through SEE sign language alone fell short of being able to communicate efficiently I guess I put the petal to the metal.

Now my whole family has taken ASL courses together, me and the kids study every night, and my BCC class started this week.

I’ve already learned so much, but most of all, I know my instincts were always right, and my questions were always well founded.

It’s not fair, I’m the one who has crushing anxiety! Since I was right all along, but people made me think I was wrong and I felt crazy.

Now I feel I have valuable knowledge to pass on.

After class I walked over to the Berkeley Art Museum. I saw a show of contemporary work inspired by the surrealists. I felt very connected to many of the works of art.

Today was the first day I felt like an independent person in a long time. Not a parent isolated in my house or an artist isolated in her studio.

I felt a new connection to community. I feel comfortable in my identity as an artist and a parent.

I realized I have so much to offer, the new people I will be meeting in my new life. I am part of things bigger than myself.

Tomorrow I will write my new artist statement for the 50/50 show. Saturday I will set it up. It’s such a meaningful collection of work.

This is my one framed work for the show. The rest are in a grid.

I think it looks very surrealist.
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