CURRENT WORK

I've been posting about a series that is more personal in nature on my social media.. It doesn't have a name yet but for now I'm playing with the idea of Transmutation. I will be telling a personal story and interspersing progress images of this series below. 

Trigger Warning: Early Pregnancy Loss, Grief, Loss

On May 6th of 2024 I had a miscarriage. I was 6 weeks pregnant and my husband and I had been trying since October of 2023. I have anxiety and this entire process has really touched on all of my anxiety triggers-control (or feeling like I have no control), my health, time, and probably a bunch of others that I'm not even aware of). I was tracking everything so I knew exactly when I was pregnant and started tracking the pregnancy. With my health anxiety, I also was really hesitant to let myself get excited until the last week when I decided to let myself be happy. I started bleeding while at work and quickly through the course of the weekend I knew I was miscarrying. Being taken into the emergency unit and calling nurses was like a dream. I couldn't believe it was happening to me and I couldn't feel connected to my body. By Monday I went in for a follow up to see if everything was okay and learned that what little tiny nugget was hanging out in my womb on Saturday was gone. 

Throughout the whole experience I took photos of things. My bruised arms from bloodwork. My hand with bandages when my arm veins failed. My face mostly to reconcile the disconnect between my mind and my body. The cardinals I saw in my backyard during my darkest days. The medical bracelet I cut off. 

It felt important to document every little thing I could. Partially for my sanity and partially because I needed something to prove that I was pregnant. That what little life I had existed and was with me for a time and had to go. The past four months have been challenging. I've dealt with depression, increased anxiety, hormonal changes, and dealing with the trauma of the experience as my husband and I decide to try again. Today I feel hopeful and excited and want my work to honor the experience. ​​

The other feelings I've grappled with are the disappointment with how we as a society treat women  and especially women who are trying to conceive. There are so many misconceptions about how easy it is to conceive and how likely it is for conception to result in a viable and healthy pregnancy that results in a healthy baby. It's something I always knew growing up in a large family, but feel so much differently now as a person trying to conceive. We treat women like they are silly if they want to have children. We treat mothers badly if they seem anxious. We judge women for not wanting to have children. It's a lose-lose situation and I've felt so angry about it especially when it's clear that we don't want to acknowledge things like early pregnancy loss. 

This shit is hard and worth talking about. No woman should have to feel like they need to hide their experience or grieve alone because they're an inconvenience. I'll climb off my soapbox now and get back to the art. This series felt ready on the four month mark of my loss. I wanted to transform my grief into something that marked it as real beyond the mementos I saved. The cardinal painting came to me first as I remember seeing so many cardinals in my yard and thinking the red of the feathers reminded me of the medical bracelet I had. 

The eyeball as womb image was something I started to think about as I started to think of my own womb so differently. Constantly monitoring it made me wish I could see inside my self and make sure everything was okay. I am trying to be better about remembering to be in my body so this painting felt even more poignant as I thought of it in the context of my loss. I know I will do something with the photos I have of my hands and bruises from bloodwork. I'm not sure if that is all I have in me. Each painting leaves me tender but more healed and a bit lighter. ​​