I was at the 2010 National Exhibition for the Canadian Institute of Portrait Artists at Mount Royal University in Calgary yesterday evening.  I had enough airmiles to fly from Comox to Calgary with my kids, stay with family and attend the exhibition, in which I had entered my portrait called "Ailen and Jet-Jazz." 

I was glad to have a glass of wine, have a night out without my kids, and meet some wonderful artists at the exhibition.  I met Jean Pederson, who is a fabulous Canadian portrait artist.  She had entered a beautiful watercolour called "Paper Rose."  Ingrid Christiansen is another wonderful figurative artist that I knew from facebook, and was finally able to meet in person.  She was actually one of the judges for the event.

Soon everyone gathered around as they announced the prizes for the exhibition.  I was hoping I might win for "Excellence in Portraiture using Combined Media."  Mine was one of the only portraits using combined media, so I thought I might have a chance in this category.   I thought "Oh well." when they announced "Little Pirate," a beautiful encaustic painting by Judy Hilgemann. 

Then the award for "Most Innovative Portrait..."  they announced Kate Hansen!  I couldn't believe it.  There was a moment I thought my knees might give out as I accepted the award.

Jean Pederson's work won for "Excellence in Watercolour," so we were both included in the winning artist's photo below.

Here's me looking very happy indeed to be included in such a prestigeous group of artists.  It was some night.

I had some wonderful news recently.  I found out I'm participating in a group show called "Mothers" at the Woman Made Gallery in Chicago.  My drawing "Gladys and Elizabeth" will be showing alongside other wonderful up and coming female artists on the 5th of November until December 23rd. 

Best of all... I'm going to Chicago!  I'm going to leave the kids with their wonderful father and hop a flight to the windy city!  I'm going to stay a few days, see a few sights, hop a few galleries and attend my own opening.  I'm SO thrilled!  I will be blogging about all this, so stay tuned.

My other good news is I was accepted into the Canadian Institute of Portrait Artists biannual exhibition!  My piece "Ailen and Jet Jazz" will be exhibited at the Mount Royal University, second floor art gallery space at the Bisset School of Business.  The show will be up from the 21st of September until October 30th. 

The best part of this news is that I have enough airmiles to take me AND the kids to Calgary for the opening and awards ceremony!  Once again I'm thrilled.  I will take lots of pictures and blog about it afterwards.

To put myself in the mood for Chicago... here's one of my favourite Sinatra songs:

My first experience of breastfeeding was when I first nursed my son in the hospital after my caesarean.  His tiny head, swollen and mishapen after spending two days wedged against my cervix, his tiny hands almost like an old person's hands after living underwater for so long, his face was wise as only newborns and the elderly are.  It was a moment of wonder, and pain, and joy.  I was aching after surgery.  I nursed him in the football hold, his body on one side to avoid hurting my incision.  The suction caused my uterus to contract, both a painful and a wonderful feeling of release, emotional and physical. 

I had spent a few years in a state of yearning for that moment.  I had suffered several miscarriages and a molar pregnancy, I had felt for so long as though my body were the enemy, as though my body could betray me at any moment.  The moment I nursed my son everything changed; suddenly my body was my friend, my breasts were competent and friendly, my baby was beautiful.  As a small breasted women I've also always felt somewhat sub-par, a little less than a real woman.  The moment my new baby latched on all those feelings of inadequacy disappeared too.  I felt about as womanly as I could possibly feel, overflowing with joy and bliss and sensuality in the purest sense. 

It was that moment that I decided to start The Madonna and Child Project  I hadn't fully formulated my concept at that point, but I wanted to express the joy and awe I felt as a new mother, and I could think of no better form than the classical Madonna and Child theme.  As an artist and a mother I've had to struggle to balance both worlds.  There were times when I actually continued to breastfeed my child as I completed my projects- a true case of art imitating life!  Sometimes I felt frustrated and harried as every mother does when trying to balance work and life, and sometimes I've felt guilty for wanting to do art when my children need me more.  Most of the time I find my work and my children are symbiotic to each other- they relate so closely to each other that I have trouble separating the two.  My experiences as a mother inform my artwork, and I think my artwork contributes to my experiences as a mother in turn.

Not every moment was magical of course.  I had days in which my breasts were aching and engorged and every item of clothing I owned was stained with breastmilk.  My sheets were soaked at night, and I struggled with feelings of irritation or disgust at my own wonderfully productive body.  Then there were other moments in which I would feel the most overwhelming love while nursing.  I remember specifically nursing my daughter in bed while she was only a few days old... thinking... no FEELING with my whole body "I love you!"  People explain that rush as a release of oxytocin and other hormones, but I prefer to believe that it's something more than that.  It felt almost like I was experiencing something transcedent, something of the divine- God if you will.  I think there is just a touch of the divine involved in the best parts of motherhood.  For some that involves bathing a child, looking into their eyes and hearing their laughter.  For me that also involved nursing, and that is what I have attempted to express through my art.

The following art piece by artist Amy Jenkins was censored from a New York art gallery in May 2004.

"The Audrey Samsara" Amy Jenkins, 2004

I was looking up "breastfeeding Artwork" online one evening when I found this photograph.  I looked up her website right away, hoping to find out more about the "Audrey Samsara," which is the title of the artwork.  The actual piece is a video of her baby Audrey nursing, falling asleep, waking to breastfeed and fall asleep again.  It's a meditative and soothing loop, much like the Buddhist cycle of life and death for which it was named.  I also noticed from the website that this artwork had been censored from an exhibition in New York, and I decided to contact the artist.

I spoke to Amy Jenkins on the subject and she told me she was surprised by the reaction to her artwork.  The artist and mother had been asked to do a piece for designer Salvatore Ferragamo to display in their 5th Avenue art gallery.  She was asked to use an item from the store as inspiration, and was granted full artistic license.  Amy fell in love with a little pair of red shoes named "The Audrey," and felt that it was meant to be, since her own eighteen month old baby girl was also named Audrey.

Amy earned her MFA at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, but also spent some time in Florance Italy, where she completed a certificate in Fine Arts.  She felt a kind of affinity for the italian background of the famous shoe designer, and agreed to create a piece for the art gallery upstairs.  Her work is mostly photography and video installation; meditative and timeless loops involving  themes of family, childbearing, relationships and discord.  They are often both serene and disturbing; surreal yet familiar. 

 
The video she created for them was a video of her daughter wearing the red shoes, nursed by a dark figure, so that the baby appears almost to float in mid air.  Amy told me that this peice was especially meaningful to her; she called it a "tender record" of her breastfeeding experience, and was shocked by the reaction it incurred.  The image evokes the timeless archetype of the Madonna and Child in a modern context.  It also reflects the classical religious theme of the "Pieta," (a depiction of the Virgin Mary cradling the dead body of Christ.) 

La Pieta- Michaelangelo, 1499

A few hours before the scheduled opening of the show in May 2004, Amy was informed that her work had been removed.  An executive found the artwork to be "distasteful" and refused to exhibit it as planned.  Amy and her family bravely attended the gallery opening, hoping to speak to someone and resolve the issue, but no one would speak to her about it.  They would not explain why it was considered "distasteful," and nothing was done by way of apology.  Amy herself wonders if it has something to do with the fashion aesthetic of the designer store- the fact that the breasts depicted in her work were functional rather than visual.  She wonders if people are so used to seeing breasts used for marketing purposes and that the sight of breastfeeding makes people uneasy. 

I personally also wonder if we as a society are unused to seeing the female nude from a female perspective.  Breastfeeding is very much a feminine experience of the female body; it doesn't involve men or sex, and can be very personal, subjective and intimate.  I would venture to guess that we as a society are unused to seeing the female nude from a female point of view; with a female gaze, if you will.  The female nude as the subject rather than an object is unfamiliar to us visually, and invokes discomfort in the viewer.  Perhaps the public, men and women alike, are used to seeing the female breast as an object of desire, and the breast from the inward, personal perspective of the woman doing the breastfeeding is unusual to us.

Whatever the reason the reaction was the same.  The artist was excluded, her point of view was rejected.  The Audrey Samsara, a beautiful timeless piece, was denied to the public.  As Amy Jenkins said- the flatscreen monitor which was meant to show her work was like "a black hole" in the gallery during the opening.  She went on to have several articles published on her story, she had plenty of public support and found many other suitable venues to share The Audrey Samsara.  I think ultimately it shows that her work is effective.  It obviously created a reaction and made people think and talk about an issue that deserves attention.  What started as a simple, beautiful moment between mother and daughter became something which shocked and also moved and inspired people.  What more can we ask from an artist than that?

 As it first appeared published in "Harlot's Sauce" June 29th, 2010

After the birth of my son in 2007, I felt an incredible energy and drive to make art. Contrary to the popular belief that art-making is one of the things that fall to the wayside after the birth of children, I felt not just inspired but compelled by my experience of childbirth and motherhood. The creative act of making another human being awoke a creative drive in me. I also found that the time limitations involved in caring for an infant forced me to be more disciplined, eking out an hour here and there when my son was sleeping to continue my portraits. After my daughter’s birth in 2008, I embarked on a series of mother and child portraits accompanied by birth stories written by each subject. I wanted to simultaneously express the imperfection and fallibility of the mothers and capture an element of the divine in the mother/child bond. Each mother in the series shares her birth story—life-changing, beautiful, or harrowing—and these experiences unify a very diverse group with a common theme: love, self sacrifice and transcendence. The inspiration for this project is my children: their beauty, their challenges and the unique and universal bond of motherhood.

Each portrait is done in ‘conte crayon’ (semi hard pastel,) accented with a gold leaf halo in an echo of portraits of the Virgin Mary with child (Madonna Lactans) from the 15th century, as well as an early 20th century revival of the practice by such artists as William Adolphe Bouguereau. Working out the process of creating the haloes was complicated. I outlined the circular shapes and filled them in with the leaf in the first four portraits, then devised a way to make a pattern in the halo with “Gladys and Elizabeth.” I was thinking of rose windows, and wracking my brain for a way to make such an even pattern by hand with my limited math skills. Unable to think of anything, I set the problem aside and started cutting out snowflakes with my son instead. Then it occurred to me to cut an elaborate snowflake and use the radiating design for the halo. I outlined a snowflake pattern on each halo and painted the gold leaf sizing on to the ground of the pattern, but not the holes, waited for the sizing to dry, and then rubbed the un-sized leaf off to reveal the pattern.

Three of my portraits are of mothers breastfeeding their babies. These modern Madonnas Lactans are a true celebration of motherhood. Breastfeeding can be a challenge. Many women did not witness their mothers breastfeeding and are unsure of how to do it correctly, and many are unnerved by the social stigma surrounding breastfeeding in public. The simple act of successfully breastfeeding their babies is a true victory. For me, there is an aura of joy, bliss and awe surrounding a breastfeeding mother, as she seems to embody the fundamental divinity of motherhood, the Gaia and the Virgin Mary. I personally find breastfeeding mothers so beautiful and pure that I was unprepared for the reaction my portraits generated when I posted them on the popular networking website Facebook. 

I posted one on a figurative artists group on Facebook, and was surprised to see that it had been removed on March 27th, 2010, just a few days later. I had already posted two more portraits, so I went ahead and reposted the one in question, thinking it must have been a glitch. My new artwork was removed on March 28th, and then on March 29th the re-posted portrait was removed as well. I reposted all three in a row, as a kind of experiment, and received the following letter by email:

Hello,

You posted an item that violated our Terms of Use, and this item has been removed. Among other things, content that is hateful, threatening, or obscene is not allowed, nor is content that attacks an individual or group. Continued misuse of Facebook’s features could result in your account being disabled.

If you have any questions or concerns, you can contact us at [email protected] from your login email address.

The Facebook Team

I went to the local CBC radio station, and was featured on the CBC Radio One morning show “On The Island” with Gregor Craigie, (go to April 9th podcast, I'm at about 7:38 in the program.)  After that, the story took on a life of its own. It was covered by various CBC broadcasts, a CBC television news program in Saskatoon, CBC Radio One’s “The Story from Here,” with Sheila Coles, (listen to part two of June 23rd 2010,) CHEK-TV News in Victoria, two talk radio shows in Toronto and Montreal, the front page of the local Comox Valley Record and an article by Antonia Zerbisias in the Toronto Star.

I believe that Facebook’s treatment of my breastfeeding portraits is indicative of the brutally high expectations that society holds for mothers. Mothers are expected to breastfeed, every health organization tells us it’s the best choice, yet images of women breastfeeding are labelled obscene and mothers are treated with hostility and disdain when breastfeeding in public. The result is an ideal of motherhood that no mother could possibly meet: scolded if we don’t nourish our babies exactly the way they tell us to, shamed if we dare to do it in public or celebrate and honour the unique bond it creates.

A common theme throughout many of the birth stories was a sense of inadequacy. Many women felt they had not lived up to their ideal of what a mother should be, what a birth should be. There was often a sense of loneliness, as in the story of Gladys and Elizabeth. Gladys came to Canada with her Canadian husband and gave birth far away from her native Kenya, in the dead of winter. Many of us, myself included, wished to have a natural birth, and had to settle for a c section birth instead. For some women it was elating to give birth naturally after a previous c section, proving to themselves that they were capable of giving birth. For everyone the act of childbirth was a rite of passage, a moment in our lives right before motherhood, when everything changes, even one’s sense of self. I wanted to draw parallels between our own ideals of what a mother should be, and the cultural ideal of motherhood, symbolized by the Virgin Mary. I wanted to simultaneously honour both that ideal and actual motherhood in all the glory of its imperfection.

My biggest issue with the Facebook censorship was that it was selective. The artwork posted on the figurative and portrait site includes many (wonderful) full nudes, while none of my portraits show more than a two-piece bathing suit would. I can only conclude that it is not the amount of bare flesh, but the subject matter of my work that they find offensive, and I find that abhorrent. Breastfeeding is not obscene. If you wish to take part in an online petition, please join my Facebook group: “Hey Facebook! Breastfeeding artwork is not obscene!”

Yesterday afternoon I received an interesting tweet from @KimKardashian "EWW Im at lunch,the woman at the table next 2 me is breast feeding her baby w no coverup then puts baby on the table and changes her diaper"

Apparently later she did a follow up tweet saying: "My sister breastfeeds! It's a natural beautiful thing, there's nothing wrong w it, but she covers herself, not w her boobs exposed."  Thank you for the lesson in modesty, dear Kim.  I will be sure to cover myself whenever nursing in public from now on. 

First of all the irony of the statement is obvious- she posed for Playboy!  How could she be so prudish about a little bit of boob exposed in the act of nursing!  It was funny.  And also very very sad.

I find it disturbing how vicious women can be to one another.  When I had an article published in the Toronto Star on the subject of the censorship of my art from Facebook http://www.thestar.com/living/article/794323--are-these-obscene?bn=1  some of the nastiest attacks in the reader comments were from other women; the worst being the following statement: "As a mother of 2, trust me, others are not interested in seeing your bloated breasts from pregnancy. And another newsflash, they ain't gonna last!"

 It's unfortunate for Kim that she made a statement like she did, because she is the classic Glass House that shouldn't throw stones.  It would be so easy to attack her, point out her hypocricy, insult her figure... that is partly why I feel sad about her comments.  Let's instead take a step back and see her as a product of her society. This is precisely what is wrong with society's view of breasts today.  Women are taught to see themselves as sexual objects first, with breastfeeding being a secondary function.  There is a de-humanizing quality to this, as women are detached from their own biology, their relationships to others, their needs and desires, and put in a realm of pure asthetics.  Women are not judged for the content of their character, but merely for the quality of their skin.

It's also unfortunate for the many many young women who follow her tweets.  The breastfeeding statistics for young women are depressing already- something like 20% -30% of young women choose to breastfeed.  Imagine how many more might be affected by this post: "EWWW! ...breastfeeding!" and choose not to give their babies the best start to life.  The diservice this statement has made to the breastfeeding advocacy movement is staggering.