Joinmama

Art and Words by Martha Joy Rose

“Disruptions, Extrusions, and Other Chaotic Consequences”

PRODUCTION SITE

MOTHERING THE WORLD

This project started after I moved to the Artist Enclave of Historic Kenwood.

I’ve spent the better part of the last ten years championing other women’s work. Prior to that, I focused musically on “performance” art. During years of songwriting and concert-making ideas are projected outward in a noisy fashion. The work I’m engaging in now is very intimate and is more of a reflection than a projection.

I am interested in exploring my body is a site of production and reproduction. It is (and has been) a site of concept making and conception-formation. Through the years it has belonged to many people, including children, partners, governments, societies, country, state, church, and home. Some of these places are unique, and some are not. However, this basic premise is clear – my body has been a site of production and “making.”

As I began editing my thoughts for this project, I realized that I never said my body belongs to me. So, more than ever this fact becomes a justification for this work, which in so many ways, mirrors what so many women have been taught to feel –namely, that women’s bodies belong to others more than they belong to themselves. Now, in the era of the new Trump administration, this may be true more than ever. It is especially important to share the truth of what it is to bring forth another human, to nurture them, and to make my body a site of visible production and labor. I want to disrupt the “nice,” “perfectly groomed,” woman-mother-persona. Here she is. Stripped down: naked, bloody, imperfect, and old but still a work of art.

Martha Joy Rose, January 29, 2017

Joy Rose is part of the Artist Enclave of Historic Kenwood. Sheis a musician, concert promoter, museum founder, and fine artist. Her work has been published across blogs and academic journals and she has performed with her band Housewives On Prozac on Good Morning America, CNN, and the Oakland Art & Soul Festival to name a few. She is the NOW-NYC recipient of the Susan B. Anthony Award, her Mamapalooza Festival Series has been recognized as “Best in Girl-Power Events” in New York, and her music has appeared on the Billboard Top 100 Dance Charts. She founded the Museum of Motherhood in 2003, created the Motherhood Foundation 501c3 non-profit in 2005, saw it flourish in NYC from 2011-2014, and then pop up at several academic institutions. Her current live/work space in Kenwood St. Petersburg, Florida is devoted to the exploration of mother-labor as performance art.The upcoming date for the next Kenwood Artist Tour is March 18^thand 19^th, 2017 noon-5pm. See map and find out more and to tour the studios of participating St. Pete, Fla craftspeople:

http://kenwoodartistenclave.org/studio-tours/

The Disruptions, Extrusions, and Other Chaotic Consequences exhibit begins with an enhanced chest of drawers. Says Rose, “we are always trying to put everything in a box….Make it neat. Or, hide things away. Here is your chance to pick a secret or leave a secret behind.” There are also photographs of body parts, paintings, and mixed media with emerging dolls. You can visit the MOM Art Annex during the Kenwood Artist Tour.

Poem for Canvas Squat

I went out to the studio and sat on a canvas

I don’t know why except that everything that has sprung from my loins is fantastic.

Four amazing kids- now adults: Brody, Blaze, Ali, Zena.

Before that, lots of painful blood. Since them – ART!

If art is like giving birth, then let the creations be fantastic too. This is my pop squat.

Everything truly great has come from between my legs. Occasionally my throat, but, mostly from between my legs…. What have you got down there? Show the world.

https://m.soundcloud.com/electric-mommyland-1/electric-pussy

Art:

My creativity is a journey. My work is very intuitive and symbolic. I tell stories through my paintings. Paintbrushes, paints, varnishes and canvases are tools to describe emotions, colours and forms instead of words. Every painting is a glimpse of memory, place, stillness and natural beauty. Every painting is a story. One takes place of another almost simultaneously. Synchronicities happen also in art.
Painting requires taking risks, it is like a jump into deep water. The moment of emerging to the surface is pure happiness.
It is also a joy, need, relief, meditation, getting through and fixing, constant learning. It is a fear as well, journey, expression and act of self- love.
Painting helps me to feel the past moment of beauty, peace and happiness one more time. It is sometimes like time travel through parallel worlds. Past, present and future penetrate through the process of creating. I am here and there at the same time.
My inspirations are strangely almost seasonal and follow’s cycles in nature and life. They are: black and white photographs of remote places, electric posts, stars, children, moon, women, shells, seaside, driftwood , …feet, spirit and wild animals and all those things which are lost between words and images and could be found only through emotions. I leave the clues of my identity in the techniques and the subjects I use and the more I paint or create the more I become aware of it.
Creating is constantly affected by life changes. Everything is connected which leaves every painting with an emotional and personal touch. I painted my recent landscapes during pregnancy. They represent not only places and moments of stillness but also emotions related to expecting a first child, adapting to changes and getting through the journey of the pregnancy.

More About Aga:
Aga is a self-taught artist and finds that she is continually learning and evolving in her artwork.
Her current body of work is focused on Scottish landscapes and her son’s portraits.
Many of her images are inspired by visiting and taking photograph’s of Scottish landscapes and people whose stories or lives have had impact on her life.
Her art and creative process are an endless journey of experiences, feelings, ideas and thoughts.
Aga works with various mediums including watercolours, acrylics, pastels and oils.
Aga’s work was exhibited in Edinburgh and was published in ‘The Mother’ magazine.

Words:

The Giraffe by Laura Sloan Patterson from Mom Egg Review Vol. 14