what motherhood looks like
.jpg)
found drawing from 2003, by me
All art is self portraiture in a way. Since giving birth, the women I draw look more like mothers: softer, more buxom, and wearing scars like badges.
Before I got pregnant, it was always the physicality of motherhood that got me: the drastic changes I anticipated in my body, the fierce pain I imagined from labor. And most of all, the irrevocably stretched and worn out self I was prepared to meet on the other side. It was not vanity exactly, just a hyper awareness of the currency of my own physical self, by which I am surely measured a million times over. So far, though, by the grace of my genes, motherhood has changed my body mostly for the better.
Still I found this provocative site that features real images and testimonies of what motherhood might do to one’s midriff and more. These images startled, edified, and comforted me. Be brave and check it out at The Shape of a Mother.
To subscribe click here
Filed under drawings, motherhood | Comment (0)art opening: photographs of friction
Photo by Billy
“I would much rather photograph my friends than celebrities” – Billy Hunt
On the last day of this month, my husband, Billy, and I will be hosting and opening reception for his “Tension in Relationships” project.
The reception will take place
on Thursday August 31st,
from 6-9pm
at Starr Hill Music Hall’s Gallery
in Charlottesville, Virginia
Along with lush, large photographs there will be music, refreshments, and a limited edition of calendars of the series for sale.
About the work, Billy says:
“These photographs are the result of an exploration of underlying
stresses— big, small—that come up between people who love one another.
For example: I will always be messy; my wife will
always be neat. We may be able to modify our actions a bit, but we
will never change who we are. The question becomes: how will we
weather this and a million other differences together?”
We hope to see you there.
To subscribe click here
Filed under photographs | Comment (0)Will, with the almighty bottle
Photo by Billy
To suscribe click here
Filed under photographs | Comment (0)sleeping arrangements
Will sleeps in our bed, screeching and cooing intermittently, with me drawn around him; occupying almost the same space he did inside my belly. Nearly three months old, and he sleeps soundly most nights;he only half wakes to nurse from where he lies.
I am not always so lucky. Sometimes at 3 AM I find myself blinking into the dark. Billy mumbles, the dogs fart and snore, and even with them all around me, I am the only person in the world.
The following mornings I might worry about our sleeping arrangements – realizing we have that untoward sounding “family bed” I’d giggled at the thought of before Will was born. It’s just that Will is still so intimately connected to my body – for food and comfort – that it seems only natural to have him at arms reach.
Still, I see a co-sleeper in our near future, and, eventually, a crib in Will’s brightly painted nursery. I picture an evening ritual of stories, pajamas, good-nights. Billy and I will play the archetypal parents, looking lovingly at our sleeping babe in his crib, before tiptoeing out.
Afterward I will stretch out in our bed, and turn freely, like before I was pregnant. I will close my eyes and dream deeply of many things, including the tiny boy who once wriggled close to sleep by my side.
To subscribe click here
Filed under motherhood | Comment (1)human touch
photo from Gizmodo
Extravagant and absurd, these hands highlight the existence of all the gadgets to entertain, teach, and otherwise occupy our babies. Already Will has swings, bouncy chairs, monitors and car-seats to hold him and watch after him.
And with family and friends far away during the day, when I want to fold laundry, or write this blog, or pee Will is plopped into his bouncy chair; usually he sits there, quite happily, for a while.
I remember reading somewhere that we Americans hold our babies much less than parents in the rest of the world. For me, this awakened a hesitancy, an idea of moderation. So sometimes I cram warm shirts unfolded into the drawers, write less; invite friends over more.
I figure, for these few and fleeting weeks and months and years, while Will still wants to be close, I can make a little more time to hold him. I hope this nurtures both of us – this simple, unbranded, free pleasure of human touch.
If you would like to receive notification each time a new post goes up on jocelyn’s stories please send an email with “subscribe” in the subject line to jocelynnjohnson@gmail.com
Filed under motherhood, photographs, the world we live in | Comment (0)inconvenient truths
Photo by Billy
Billy and I went to see An Inconvenient truth, the Al Gore global warming movie, last weekend. Will went too, sleeping in a sling across my lap. It was early afternoon, still the theater was crowded. When the movie let out, we moaned, collectively, as we walked back into the sweltering heat; in the car, on the radio, the commentator reported on cows dropping dead in record high temperatures on the west of the country.
If you haven’t already, then please, go see this movie. We put it off, worrying about depressing ourselves. Gore addresses this point beautifully when he jokes:
On the subject of global warming, most folks go straight from denial to despair.
In the end, we found Truth informative, convincing and strangely hopeful. Usually stiff, Gore even managed to make us laugh more than once. The main points of the movie are things we already know, but must understand more fully. Most importantly, that we have a window of time in which to change, or else risk that which is most basic to our survival, to the survival of our children.
Truth asks us to pause, between denial and despair, on an intermediate step of action – and points us on our way.
Filed under photographs, the world we live in | Comment (1)