My book is listed under parenting right now. That’s not what I intended. I said MOTHERHOOD and FINE ARTS AND CREATIVITY. I just panicked over this and ran to my i-phone and sent two emails to the publishers that I want it to say: MOTHERHOOD, INDIVIDUAL ARTIST, and CREATIVE NON-FICTION. I’ve learned so much about computers, numbers, and codes, during the publishing process. I learned when you publish a book you gotta be real specific. It’s just the nature of the beast. I’m half-crazy now. If I was half crazy before does that mean I’m totally crazy now? I’m texting the gallerist asking her if she wants to peddle books with me!!!! I’m totally crazy!!! Amazing. And yesterday, when I said I was going to go with the flow, oh my god. I tried, I did the whole deal, a pancake lunch, a scooter around the city park, a trip to wild care. It was hot. And we were all tired. There was complaining every step of the way. Luckily, we all felt the exact same, me and my two kids, three-and-a-half-year old’s. I was horrible. I ate French fries and a crazy garden burger. Jack banged his forks and spoons and the lady next to us told him to hush. She turned out to be super cool. She helped me and wanted to talk. She showed me her swollen feet and showed Jack the Velcro straps on her shoes. Jack was being bad. When we got back to the car I saw this lady, a homeless woman I see a lot, but she’s usually looking down at the sidewalk. She whispered, “Any Change”. I thought I knew what she said, but I asked, “What?” She repeated, we made eye contact. I grabbed ten bucks outta my bag and handed it to her. Her feet were super dirty, red, and swollen. Her face burnt from the hot October sun, she had those red sores. The ones you get from tweaking and picking the skin off your face because you feel like there’s little bugs in your pores. I think we could be the same age. She said, “Really? Are you sure?” I said “Yeah” She walked up the street, past the place Jack, Fiona, and I just had our horribly behaved lunch, and looked back at me several times saying “Thank You”. When we got home my foot started to ache a bit. Then more, and more, and, more. The only thing I can equate the pain with was when I had a miscarriage. It was like my foot was convulsing in pain. I locked Jack, Fiona, and I in their bedroom. I laid down on the book reading futon. I tried everything, warm water, elevation, resting, deep breathing but it was like a nerve was being twisted and my foot was turning inside out. It started to swell and turn purple. I was freakin out. Jack started acting bad. He unlocked the door and ran upstairs to get into the fridge. I had to go up. I hopped to the stairs, and crawled up, one by one. I sat down and opened several string cheeses for Jack and Fiona. I took two Tylenol and after an hour the swelling went down, and the shooting pain dulled. Today the doctor said I had to have the surgery to remove my ganglion cyst growing outward, creating a whole new landscape on the sole of my foot. I’ve had it for years. My doctor told me to avoid surgery as long as I could. He said it’s dangerous and I could get an infection. But I can’t handle another flare up like the one yesterday, unless they give me some heavy pain pills. It was that bad.
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The freeway rumbles, birds sing, thick cob webs connect, catch light on the deck railing. Jack watches a movie and I ponder, how can I reduce the piles of paper, toys, and dirty laundry through out my house. What I’ve been doing, week after week is shoving clean clothes in my closet, shoving paperwork in tote bags, toys get put away and before I know it they are every where again. It’s not worth the trouble, or time. I am starting to sweat, it’s a warm October morning. My favorite time of the year. It would be a good day for a nature walk. A Hike.
The other morning I decided to take Jack and Fiona on a bike ride on a path by the bay, where sea birds spend their day hunting for food in the marsh. I took Billy and was looking forward to the walk. Jack and Fiona started riding their bikes, but it didn’t last long. Jack wanted to play on the giant slabs of broken concrete at the edge of the water, covered in bright green slippery algae. Fiona wanted to ask questions about things, everything. It wasn’t any where near as fun as I imagined it would be, so we cut the walk short and went for coffee and pink cake pops. That they enjoyed much more. We are all getting over a cough and cold so it was understandable.
I went back yesterday to the same place with Billy, my dog, while Jack and Fiona were in preschool. Billy and I had a nice walk. I imagine today when I ask my children to take a hike they will balk at the idea. They will want to go to a park. I will take them on a nature hike anyhow, not expecting anything in particular. Tomorrow morning when they are in preschool I can go again on my own! Although I have some work to do in my Nap Time Notebooks for my upcoming show. I would love to get a few more completed. But we shall see, the main goal at present, to remain flexible about things I plan to do!
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“Don’t have kids” I was told. “You can’t be a serious artist and have kids”. My legs got weak. My friend said the teacher of the art class and she were talking about me, that I shouldn’t get pregnant, I shouldn’t have kids. That I was a good artist, if I had kids I wouldn’t have time? Be taken seriously? This was right at the beginning of me trying to get pregnant. Years later, right before Jack and Fiona were born, I was turned on to a fabulous artist by one of my teachers. She lent me his catalogue. I took it and read it. He did wonderful paintings and studies. He did travel diaries which he worked on abroad for a year. I read he had kids and I became obsessed about who took care of the kids. It was the wife. She stayed home and took care of the kids while he went on a yearlong painting residency in a tropical rainforest. Is that why I was told women artists who are also mothers can’t become serious artists because it would be difficult to pick up and leave the children when they are young for a year to do a serious yearlong art residency? Or that we can’t just work in the studio all day long. We have responsibilities in home. Why can a woman have a full-time job and be a mother, but not be a serious artist? Why did my friend and my teacher tell me this? I looked through a book last night, a survey of contemporary painters. There are several women in the book, and it’s filled with top notch paintings. I read through the writings about the different artists. I noticed no one mentioned children, having children, how domesticity has influenced their work. There are a lot of fiber arts that deal with subjects of domesticity, but it’s mostly a direct connection with a material used in domestic products; fabrics, yarn, embroidery, wool, using these materials in new and interesting ways. My work uses traditional picture making materials, paint, paper, glue, charcoal, pastels, canvas, wood, the printing press, even my Nap Time Notebooks are in traditional sketchbooks. But my identity as an artist has been very influenced by my childhood, my relationship with my mom and her death, parenthood, wifehood, domesticity. It’s filled with memories through color and line. Raising children is emotional, my work is emotional. Was their critique of me having children saying I didn’t have it in me to do both? I wouldn’t work hard enough, or I didn’t want it bad enough? I remember my mom telling me I would never be able to be a serious artist because I would never be able to spend hours alone in my studio. After my declaration of becoming an artist she found out that she was wrong, that I did have it in me to spend countless hours working in my studio. Thank God for the women in my life who said, “Go for it”! Have kids and be an artist. Thank you, Ladies! It wasn’t easy, making time for my studio after Jack and Fiona were born. But I did it and I wrote a book about it too.
Dirty Laundry Blog by Jennifer Hynes 