It's Personal

I recently started reading Frida Kahlo's Biography and it has been the perfect source to work out how to move forward in my life and art. I feel like my art needs to become something more. More personal, internal and with more feeling. My mind is always in a turmoil with keeping the past shut out and focusing everything on the now. I purposely live my life in the present with some glances toward the future. I rarely look back into the past. But over the years I have begun to develop a thicker skin and can take a fair amount of criticism before it breaks me. 10 years ago, that was not the case. I am so extremely empathetic that one comment or tone would send me into a pool of tears. The rut I am in is going to need a jolt of emotion to get me out of this funk. I have a good support system now that will help if I get too far sucked into the past. But I think I need to do this. I am going to try and finish the piece on the footling breach Cesarian birth of my first born. I will address the miscarriages I have had. I will celebrate the home birth of my second born. I will address the fear and shock of the ectopic pregnancy that left me unable to have any more children. I will explore the ramification of sudden food allergies have had on my daily life.

I have never made art or done anything more than journaling about these experiences.  They are incredibly intense life changing events and I have basically been surviving the past few years. The food allergies have alienated me from most of a social life and I am now even afraid to engage in social activities or travel and I have lost all spontaneity. Everything I do now requires a plan. That is exhausting. The ectopic pregnancy put me so close to death that it brought me to a place where I finally realized who I was and to do the things I wanted because life was just too short. The Cesarian forced me into a reality that things do not go as planned. My body was permanently deformed and it has taken years to pick up the pieces on my self esteem.

It feels the older I get, the less I actually know about the world. I never thought any of those things would happen to me. I have basically lived my life as a good person taking very little risk but life just hands me the drama and makes me deal with it. Most of my trauma can be directly tied to either a sexual or reproductive issue. This life has been brutal but because if it, I can empathize with other women on these issues too.

The first part of internal exploring will come in this next Artist's Shuffle: My Dichotomy. I have never done a self portrait other than photography. I feel like this project, where I will have to create over 100 self portraits alongside another artist's self portrait will be the first step in self discovery.