“The moment a woman comes home to herself, the moment she knows that she has become a person of influence, an artist of her life, a sculptor of her universe, a person with rights and responsibilities who is respected and recognized, the resurrection of the world begins.” ~Joan Chittister
I recently became aware of local artist Susan Singer because she has been collaborating with Valley Haggard, whom I know through our preschool community; Susan is painting Valley, and Valley has been writing about the experience. Their combined works will be part of a show next February featuring the efforts of four such artist pairs.
Susan has been working exclusively on female nudes for the last year and a half, and says that the work leads her, rather than being chosen by her. Last night, my friend Amy and I attended her talk at Visual Art Studio during this month's First Fridays Art Walk. "Talk" sounds formal - really, she stepped forward, spoke for a moment about why and how she has created the Sacred Flesh series, then invited several of the models present to talk about their thoughts and experiences. After this, she spoke again about her process, her motivation for this work, her desire to see a person and not their shape and also to represent the beauty of their shape.
The woman pictured in Beauty with a Veil, II (above left) shared her thoughts about body love being the major chore of a woman's adulthood. She is a luscious woman full of joy and sensuality, and this is reflected in the portraits Susan has painted of her. The woman in Joyful, Joyful was not present yesterday evening, but Susan described her as a ballet dancer in her 80s who is just "over it" as far as bodily anxieties go. She owns her powerful body, she has lived in it and enjoyed it and used it in ways that make her happy.
Another model described her body as her "vehicle" and suggested that we all drive different vehicles, that their purpose is to get us where they're going, and why should we feel at all ashamed of the vehicle we drive? What does the vehicle itself have to do with the person who we are?
(At this point I feel like I need to acknowledge that many people do think that our bodies reflect who we are. Character judgments related to a person's shape and size are common. Our culture has a lot of baggage related to accepting our bodies, weight, and health...I would suggest that you check out the many resources the internet has to offer regarding the Body Acceptance / Health at Any Size movement. All bodies have worth. Health is an individual issue as unique as the body you live in. Our assumptions about beauty, size, and health are often inaccurate, even bigoted.)
Their words reminded me of how I fall in love with the physical beauty of friends while editing photos of them. Most women I know feel like they are not attractive, or not photogenic. I've had the opportunity to capture portraits of several friends lately, and without exception, I have found myself absolutely enthralled with how gorgeous they are, in both conventional and nonconventional ways. So often women admonish me to "make them beautiful," and I wish I had the words to convey to them that I do not make anybody beautiful, that they are beautiful, and that the best photos of them are the ones in which we see who they really are - their genuine expressions, the work their body does, the things that matter to them. It's not about shape or makeup or clothing or hair or even about a smile. It's not about PhotoShop magic or what camera I use - it's the beauty that you bring. I just harness photons as they bounce off of you.
And yet, as I said, most women whom I have photographed don't feel very beautiful. Most of us are very defensive about our bodies, apologetic for them. We find reasons not to be photographed. We put our bodies down even while we see how beautiful all of our friends are in both conventional and non-conventional ways. What makes us think that we don't look just as beautiful to them? Why can't we extend that grace to ourselves?
Like most women, I struggle with accepting my body. Even at age 17 with a slim size 4-6 hourglass figure and C cup breasts, I felt small-busted and thick-hipped, and not terribly pretty. What's up with that? And with that as a starting point, how is there ever any hope of my accepting myself at 35 and beyond, with an older, heavier, more broken-in body? When Cheryl picked up my camera to snap these photos of me at a friend's house, I was annoyed and self-conscious. I fully intended to delete them. Actually, I did delete most of them, but kept these two. While my body does not look the way I want it to, I know that in ten years I will probably look back and wonder what I was so insecure about, just as I look back now at photos of myself taken at age 25 or 15. I like the exuberance she captured, I like my laugh. I like the motion of the coin belt. And even in the fleshiness of my arms, there is beauty - I'm reminded of the arms of grandmothers and bakers. Capable, domestic arms and hands.
Susan mentioned that photographing models for her 12 Naked Men series was very different from working with women for Sacred Flesh. While 10 men danced around to music in the buff and she documented them, she asked them what they like and don't like about their bodies. They answered easily - I like my feet, I like my hands, I think my butt is cute, I guess my abs aren't so great. They didn't hesitate, it didn't change their demeanor during the photo session...there was no cost to them of observing and judging their own bodies, there was no cost to Susan in questioning them about their self-perceived physical plusses and minuses while simultaneously capturing them in photographs. With women, on the other hand, there is a cost to thinking and talking about one's own body. She quickly realized that asking women those questions while photographing them was not a good idea. It changed their behavior. Women's feelings about their bodies are much more deeply rooted, typically. This does not mean that no men have deep insecurities about their bodies, just that on average, body image is a much more sensitive, emotional issue for women than it is for men.
Likewise, nudity is more emotionally charged for women than perhaps it is for men. The models talked about their experiences with sharing their photos and/or paintings with family members. Some were proud and supportive. Others were...not so supportive. One woman's oldest siblings were excited and full of positive comments, while her much-younger brother was creeped out. Another women's friends thought it was odd that her brother and husband both attended the gallery opening with her. In another family, the matriarch instructed the woman who had posed to "just stop" and advised her that "we don't talk about sex." Does nudity really equal sex? Are breasts and bottoms really something we should be more ashamed of than hands and feet and faces? Is it really so horrible for a brother to acknowledge his sister's body?
Two women (who did not speak at the gallery) had posed together for Susan, but then had second thoughts later. Their concerns related to family reaction to their nudity and to job security. They asked that their portrait not be shown, which, of course, was frustrating to Susan, who had worked hard on the painting. At the same time, she wanted to respect their desire for privacy. Out of this conflict came an ingenious solution - the reworked piece she titled Mother and Daughter Jocks Bound by Caution.
I know that caution well, and I felt haunted by it while I gazed upon so many images of women's bodies. Three years ago, I posed for maternity portraits. Some included clothing and some did not. I really wanted to share them - I felt SO beautiful and wanted to celebrate that wonderful feeling - but I worried that releasing them into the world might have negative consequences. I worried that family members would disapprove, or that they would feel disturbed by seeing my nude form and would not be able to "unsee" the images that bothered them. I worried that seeing the images might change how people think of me. I worried that people might disparage my body behind my back. I ended up releasing only a couple of images. Two friends have seen all of the images. One, I know can handle it. The other, I wonder about.
Shortly after my maternity session, I gave birth to Xander, and his birth was documented by my midwife's assistant, Therese, using my camera. The photos tell an amazing story about a powerful and life-changing event. I wanted badly to share these images because of their personal import and also because I know that there aren't enough images out there in the world showing normal, healthy, unhindered births. And yet...would it bother people who know me to see me giving birth?
I felt so torn over whether or not to make these images public. I felt like the ethically right thing to do was to share them, to help normalize our ideas of maternity, birth, the female form. And yet, I worried. I feared. I made image galleries and kept them private, sending them only to people who requested to see them.
And yet...I've seen nude photos of a dear friend of mine. Some of the photos are simple nudes, some are quite sensual, some are even quite sexual, but it hasn't changed my friendship with her in any negative ways. If anything, the trust she gave to me and the beauty she showed me made our friendship stronger. I've seen countless birth photos, and don't feel grossed-out by them. I've seen Susan Singer and several of her models standing next to their own self-portraits and had not a glimmer of oh my goodness, there are her boobs, now I know what she looks like under her clothing. Not a glimmer. And as for family members and nudity...I grew up with three brothers. I've seen penises outside of a romantic context. It didn't change my comfort levels with my brothers and I'm not scarred for life. I even once ended up chatting with a dormitory hallmate of mine, who was a model for the art department of our college, while she was completely nude, and while it was certainly a unique experience, it felt refreshingly normal. So you know? If anybody is haunted by seeing me naked, if I don't have what they consider to be an ok body to show nude, that's their problem.
After last night, I feel like hiding those images is hypocritical. I will no longer hide them. Just as Susan titled her own self-portrait, Yes, this is me, I say to you: this is me.
(Gallery of maternity images by Angela Wright Photography)
And this is me:
(Gallery of birth photos, accompanied by Xander's birth story.)
I feel nervous about this choice, but I know it is the right choice, the bodies-are-beautiful choice, the nudity-is-not-shameful choice, the birth-is-normal choice. Anybody who has issues with it might want to take a few moments to consider why the photos bother them, and whether they might challenge those feelings and try on a different perspective. Still, it's very strange to put these things out there in a world where bare flesh and bodily processes are looked on as something disgusting and shameful. If you look, would you leave me a note?
(Side note - I remembered writing a post about fat awareness but couldn't find it, and it turned out it was because I never published it. I've remedied that now.)
Spiders and beetles and slugs, oh my! I often get freaked-out reactions when I share photos of insects and other creepy crawlies, and it's a shame. Bugs present a window into some pretty cool science, and I suspect that being a bug-lover is also a good exercise in challenging first impressions and slowing down enough to watch, wait, and learn. (One trend that points in the direction of people being all about the first impressions when it comes to bugs: ladybugs and butterflies are considered less icky than other bugs, and bugphobes will often let those two walk all over them, but not other flying insects or beetles. Hmmm.)
The first time I saw a spider cricket, I think a rough representation of my reaction would be OMG YIKES WHAT THE HELL IS THAT THING?!?!? They're freaky. They look like some deformed science experiment gone wrong. Now I live in a house that's full of 'em, and I know they're not harmful, and besides, I don't want my kids growing up seeing me freak out over innocent arthropods. Still, it's disconcerting when one of them jumps in your direction. I'll admit, I don't want to touch them, and when I catch them, it's with a bug jar and lid, not with my bare hands.
Reese, however, is a lover of small crawly things, and adopts "pet" bugs now and then, which usually only remain in captivity for a few minutes before he lets them go. He's amazingly gentle, yet firm: he picks them up and handles them decisively, but the bugs never seem to be in any danger from him. It's an impressive aspect of a child who can also be full of uncontrolled, explosive energy. Bugs seem to center him.
So it came as no surprise the other day when I heard, "Mom, I caught a spider cricket!" It wasn't his first cricket, not by a long shot.
"How did you catch it?"
"In my hands."
"Where is it?"
"Right here."
(Oh. Um. Keep those hands closed, ok? I don't want it jumping on me.)
Out loud: "Oh, is it jumpy? Is it dying? It's hard to catch the jumpy ones."
"It's not dying, he just likes me."
(Translation: it's probably near the end of its life if it's not jumping.)
He showed me the cricket, let it crawl over his hands, up his arms, onto his shoulders. It got under him, but somehow did not get crushed. We found it on his backside. He scooped it back up in his hands.
Then he offered it to me.
Oh, no. No, no, no. Here's where I'm a bug hypocrite: those things are creepy. I don't wanna handle them!
But the thing is, here's my five-year-old handling it like it's the sweetest, tiniest puppy in the world. He's talking to the spider cricket, treating it like a welcomed guest. I know, intellectually, that this thing will not harm me. I want to be as unafraid as he is of this creepy thing that doesn't deserve the fear and loathing I hold for it.
So I reach out.
And I take the spider cricket.
And it's really not bad at all. It barely even tickles. It's harmless. I can do this. What have I been afraid of?
Eventually Reese asked to have the cricket back, and he and Xander set about building a Duplo house for it. The cricket watched the construction from the safety of Reese's cupped hand.
"Let's show him around," Reese said, and proceeded to take the cricket on a tour of the neighborhood.
The tour mainly consisted of showing the cricket Reese's collection of glow-in-the-dark bats and an old airplane that used to belong to Reese's dad. The cricket must have been impressed to the point of silence, since it didn't say anything. It did, however, consent to take a ride on the plane:
(Crickets ride on the underside of planes, naturally. This is why you cannot see it. It was a short flight and the cricket seemed to enjoy it immensely, by which I mean it did not bail out, so the trip must not have been all that bad.)
Having seen all that the room had to offer and realizing that construction on the new guest house would be slow at best, the cricket went for a walk under the Lego table, and then... vanished.
The next day, I put a pair of flats on and my right toe encounters something in the tip of the shoe. I slip my foot back out, tilt the shoe, and OMGTHERESASPIDER. I shriek. Oh, wait, it's a spider cricket. Probably Reese's dear little spider cricket.
But it hops and I react skittishly, bat it away from my closet so that it won't hide in there again, and nearly kill it. Then I scoop it up with a tissue and take it outside, where Reese greets it with delight and assures me that it absolutely is the same cricket.
As if he can tell.
Well, maybe he can.
And as for me, I'm working on it.
I had the privilege of taking some photos of my friend Heidi today to document her Metamorphosis project. Heidi is an artist who works predominantly in fiber, and this project also incorporates a performance art aspect as she represents the often uncomfortable changes that a person experiences in the course of a marriage. Of the hundreds of images I captured, this is my favorite, for its simultaneous awkwardness and gracefulness, the light on the vintage dress, and the glint of her wedding band.
Like many adaptations from one medium to another, my work is only a representation of hers. In order to truly understand and appreciate this art, one must see the original. About this piece, Heidi writes: "The metamorphosis of marriage can feel like being trapped, stretching and transforming a traditional shell. The wedding dress is a fixation on the past."
We still call them "the babies," to differentiate them from "the big kids", their older siblings. They'll probably always be the babies of our families. Yet both of them entered their classroom today with utter self-confidence.
Next week is the first official, full day of preschool. I've been nonchalant all summer but suddenly I'm racked with anxiety. I know it will all be ok (preschool mantra: I know this is hard, and I know you can do it), but the unknowns are killing me. Will he really be cool with being there all morning without me? Will I disintegrate into a pile of mama crumbs after I drive away?
I was going to suggest a coffee date for my fellow preschooly parents, but perhaps a wine bar would be a better venue for an adult playdate. If anybody gets in our faces about it we can just tell them that it's happy hour in St. Petersburg. Будем здоровы!*
*Budem zdorovy, "to our health"
The parent launch meeting was last night and his classroom visit is tomorrow. How can my baby be a preschool kid?
Today we visited vital records because somebody forgot that Virginia doesn't just send you a child's birth certificate, you have to request it, and he was chatting up the other children in the place. "I'm Xander. I'm going to preschool. I need a blue backpack for preschool." He's right, he does need a backpack. Good thing he keeps me straight. The third kid is a whole new animal: he knows the ropes, and he's got plans. Four years ago when Griff started school at 3 1/2 I wasn't sure that either of us was ready for it. I couldn't believe anybody would send a two-year-old - a baby - to school five days a week. Yet here I am, doing it.
He's ready (BOY, is he ready). I'm ready (ditto). Let's do this thing.
The crib has been dismantled after 7 1/2 years. It wasn't in constant use - babies were in and out of our bed and there were times when the crib sat waiting for the next sibling - but it has been a fixture in our home since very shortly after Griffin was born.
It's real, there are no more babies. The next couple of weeks are going to be ENORMOUS. Tonight Xander sleeps in one of the twin-sized beds that I used as a child and that his brothers used before we had bunk beds and that my great-aunt used in my family's ancient history. Next week he visits his new preschool, the same one his brothers attend/ed. The week after that, for the first time, all three children will be in school. Sure, only for one day of that week, and two of them will only have a half day, but still: all three children will be in school.
And just like that, one era ends and another begins.
Sometimes I think he's growing right in front of my eyes. The shoes that fit last week are too small this week. The unclimbable tree becomes a favorite perch. He and his brothers have all stretched out this summer, a tribe of lanky limbs and ropey muscles.
Griffin is all about puns, all of a sudden, a mini master of double entendre. I'm talking to a friend about a previous conversation, and Griff chimes in on the subject, saying, "Oh, I overheard you" and then stopping and smiling and saying "I really did over-hear you, I was in the tree."
As much as I feel so ready to be out of the baby days, I worry already that it's over too soon. Will I regret the passing of these moments? Will the benefits of the new phases outweigh the lost snuggly babies and little-boy preciousness, or, as strangers in grocery stores seem to indicate via their comments, are the best days already over? I don't really miss two-year-old Griffin, toddler Reese, newborn Xander, because I have their modern incarnations with me. Will I miss their current selves once those have gone?
The reading and the writing were bad enough; it was what was written, though, that was the real violation. Hurtful words spoken in what should have been a safe space.
Half my life. Half my life gone by, and more, and only today did I open the book again. No, not even opened. I fanned the pages, glimpsed the writing that was mine, mine, mine, and then suddenly, not mine. Four pages of unwelcome slanting black ink, the last entry for over seventeen years.
The book has been moved to five dorm rooms, three apartments, and three homes. It has been hidden in boxes, stashed in drawers, perched on bookshelves. My personal grief, a single violation that represents hundreds of thousands of others. Many times, I’ve thought about opening it and reading it again - even perhaps just reading my own words, not hers. I couldn’t do it. Or I didn’t want to. I still don’t want to, except that I do want to, and I do need to. It has been long enough that I know for certain that I am not the things written in black. It has been long enough that I don’t need to worry that they are true, because I know the truth.
(Well-meaning people who blithely advise a person to “bury the hatchet” often don’t pause to consider whether the person they’re advising was ever the one carrying the hatchet to begin with. Do they hold the hatchet, or do they bear its wounds? Those who say “it takes two to tango” don’t consider that it only takes one to swing, to chop, to sever. We must be careful with what we say and what we write.)
Wounds heal in their own time. Tonight I tend to my wounds, I find hope in the signs of healing, and I vow:
I will not be hurt any more by those words. The only one who writes this book is me.
The clearing away of weeds, the recitation of names of plants learned long ago, last year, and last week. Pruning back toward order, both outwardly and inwardly.
