Stepping Stones

Grandmother and her father

In Relation

Grandmother's Ladies, a collection

working with 1%

working with grandmother's posessions:

flawed lovers, grandma and grandpa

dysfunctional family

me: in-between (above) and spine (below)

Back to Back

Tereza! I'm finally back online, after a very long hiatus.
Thank you so much for continuing to post, and for keeping this blog alive.
I miss you very much, and am very happy to see your hand back in your work.

I hope to be able to post images of my recent work soon; however, it has felt as though I've not completed anything at all except for changing diapers, going to the park, helping the baby feed himself, etc. The short intervals of studio time don't seem to be enough - although I admit that's a mindset I have to sort out...it's not really "real".

I did manage to go to an artists' talk entitled "Taking Custody: the double life of the artist mother", sponsored by SVA this week. The panel was comprised of women who are artists who also happen to be mothers. It was encouraging to hear that the issues I currently face are more universal to artist mothers in general, and not just in my particular case. I felt uplifted and more reassured. It was also my birthday, so as a present to myself I gave myself that time to listen and learn.

I hope to get better at talking to you through our blog again, although I have to admit I got used to speaking to you over the phone when you were living in the US! Without that ease, I feel a little cut off. Can I vent to you here? I need some help I'm afraid. Or, I need some help. I'm afraid.

xxx

Soap family is growing

1%

As I ask what remains, 

Half a year ago I passed some of my grandmother's items through my hands, helping my mother renovate her apartment. There wasn't much but there was a lot of substance. On another hand, it was remarkable how much there was. The scraps, just odds and ends, accumulated over a lifetime. A fantastic moment which generated many minutes of belly wrenching laughter, was the bottom item, a sign for a slippery surface and a warning "Do not run!"  Why was it tucked away in the back of a drawer for years? Just amazing...

distance, a knowing and a not-knowing

I'm obsessed with subtle expressions and realizing that so much can be translated even without features, in the spaces around them, the chin, cheeks and hollow of the cheeks, the forehead. I'm looking at my great-grandmother. I know one of her stories. She sailed to America at the turn of the twentieth century, only to return with her dying husband, bury him according to his wishes in the homeland, the current CZ, and find herself pregnant with my grandmother, in that order. My grandmother never met or had any photos of her father, but when asked was told to find him in the mirror.

the x's and arrows are my grandmother's

am carving them with her nail-grooming set