Here
are two artworks and a poem I made about what it is like for me being
pregnant from prompts from a book called "Birthing From Within" by Pam
England. The poem is describing the second art piece.
Being Pregnant, 30 weeks
Little curling seedling,
I try to imagine you inside me,
but your tender development eludes me.
As I crane to grasp the very concept of
you,
the boundaries of my being expand,
making room for your ever reaching
tendrils.
As we ride the turbulent tides together,
we are guided by instinct, intuition,
and my sea creature heart who flips
effortlessly through the waves beside us.
I
made the paintings in an art making session with my Mom, where she also
made art about pregnancy, childbirth and the future baby.
I
am becoming aware that I am on a path of inter-generational healing
since my Mother has come to live with me last Oct. Some of it
has manifested in my own poetry, some of it has been in a parenting
class with my sweetheart, and now this art making was the first time I
was able to include her in the process as well. Thus I am thinking of
the following project...
Project idea:
My
sweetheart, Mom, and I (and maybe other family members), all write a
letter/poem to our own childhood self, and then another to the unborn
baby in my belly. We then excerpt one to three lines from our letter to
the baby, and each of us writes the excerpts on my belly (probably with
facepaints). If we do each of these separately, we can also decorate
the belly as we wish. However, we may wish the excerpts to somehow be
in conversation with each other. I imagine documenting this with a
series of photographs of each person drawing on my belly (or maybe video
which could capture any movement of the fetus as well, but other then
that I think photos are enough).
Feedback:
Any ideas for the prompts or parameters of my project idea to make it clearer or more interesting?
Any visions of environment?
Any other ideas or thoughts?
