In the summer I ran an hour-long workshop that combined two of my greatest loves: art & writing.
It was the first time I’d ever hosted my own event, despite having taught art history in university for over 13 years and ekphrastic writing for other organisations. But this year I gathered the courage and was thrilled when the first date sold out in less that 24 hours. A repeat session also sold out.
Earlier in the year, during a writers’ salon event - Wild Women - Victoria Bennett asked how I might characterise the relationship between my writing and visual art practices. It took me a while to formulate a response because the two are so intertwined. They are two very distinct mediums and yet I can't separate image from word. There are so many creative possibilities that can come from looking.
As a teenager, I was drawn to art history because of the way it brings together the visual with the textual. The broad study of material culture acts as a framework to investigate social dynamics, but art also offers an embodied and subjective experience. Encounters with the visual take me beyond myself, but also deeper into my own consciousness.
These workshops invited participants to look closely at art works depicting mothering and created space to think creatively about our own responses to these images and what they might provoke within ourselves. I introduced ideas relating to visual description and visual analysis and offered some creative prompts.
I also offered participants to share any work that grew from sparks generated in the workshops and I was thrilled when a few agreed for their words to be published here.
Thank you to those who took up the invitation and attended the workshop. It was a pleasure to look and think and share together. xxx
And thank you to those who shared their words as well. xx
Here they are:
a brightness
Genevieve Beech (@mossandmilk)
his rose-child cheek rests plump on her padded jaw. downy faces locked; how to separate mother from son? a dyad, heavy with love’s submission – she soaks into the drifting creature.
they are not connected by threads but bodies: he tucks into her spaces, legs between legs,
he curls into her curves. downy faces locked, a brightness, their bodies held in muffled time, parts easing into place.
they are not connected by threads but hands: hand on hand, on face, on leg. the child glows, a brightness, in the mother's tender shadows. a dyad, heavy with love’s submission – she soaks into the drifting creature.
Honey and Soap
— After ‘Emmie and Her Child’
by Grace Kelley
Every evening, before bed, we simply sit. Here.
I undress you, unbutton each layer, until
your little sunkissed body is free.
Your creamy thighs sink
into my layers of fabric and flesh.
Your feet swing and rub against each other
and swoosh against my dress.
My mind quietly recounts our day.
Like a prayer. And it is.
Recounts all moments for which
I am grateful. For your soft hands
running up and down my arms.
Fingers, like butterfly wings on my cheek,
stained from a strawberry feast. Your face
smelling of burnt toast,
butter, honey, and soap.
How affectionate you are these days.
How passionate. Full of kisses.
And storms.
Each one reminds me
just how fleeting these moments are.
These beautiful difficult days.
Untitled
by Tegen Hager-Suart
“I want it to end. I do not want it to end. I feel anguished by not suckling you. I feel elated: we are two. Finally, you can go beyond me, and yet be held by me.
I will make a cradle of myself for you always. But my breasts are my own again. We hold each other knowing the unity we are losing and the calm intimacy we still have.
You hold me now for love not just sustenance. And I hold you. I will always hold you - even as you slip into otherness.
I kiss your crown. I worship the soles of your feet, the roundness of your bottom.
We are opening to the world. You to freedom and me back to bodily autonomy. I brace myself against the change, which I am eager, but can never be ready, for.
You are at the starting line, while I am ready to begin again and again.”
I am running an extended version of the above workshops, starting on 2nd October. Picturing Mother: Maternity Through the Ages. And there are still a couple of spaces left.
Over four hour-long LIVE workshops we will journey through history to explore how ideas, attitudes, and representations of motherhood have transformed across cultures and eras.
We will analyse iconic artworks, uncover some of the societal and cultural forces that shaped these representations, and gain insights into the changing roles and expectations of mothers/ carers throughout history. In addition, there will be space to reflect on your own relationship to the concept of 'the mother'—whether as a figure in your life, a role you inhabit, or an idea that resonates with you.
so lovely 😍