Earth Mother
I cannot escape my body. I am a woman with a legacy that stretches back through evolutionary time, from one hominid species to the next. Not all, but many of us have experienced the trials of giving birth. It is grotesque and humbling. It’s momentous and agonizing. After birth, the smell of blood glues itself to us for weeks on end. Our body loosens as water, baby, and placenta are all leached away. Our breasts become heavy like rocks and our sore nipples spew rivers on our beds. We become feverish with infected milk ducts and swollen veins. This is what it felt like to be an embodied new mother. And this new reality informs us over and over of our deep and inescapable connection to the earth. I am giving birth and smelling death all in one breath.
Poverty of Language
Language is one of our greatest attributes as a species. It is creative, engaging, forms alliances, etc. And even though that is the case, language cannot capture all intention. When we create, our thoughts are given an opportunity to be more deeply understood and explored.
It is difficult to know how to give language to impressions and art has the power to capture the impression without words.
Another Way
What universe is the artist trying to create? And when they crouch to the ground to observe their creation, what particulars have they organized to point back to the stars?
Define the Undefined
The artist is not a painter, or a sculptor, or a dancer. The artist is a creative that expresses through mediums, the mediums don’t define the artist, the artist defines the mediums. Give me a box so I can step outside of it—that’s the artist.