Joinmama

Art by Rachel Fallon

Weapons of Maternal Destruction
Spoke and Rupture – things done and undone; in what moment does protection or defence turn upon itself and what are the consequences?

More about the Artist

My work explores themes of protection and defence in domestic and maternal realms – the protection of a mother for her child, for her mental health, of identity and place. My research findings lead, not to answers but to the formulation of more questions. The work I make is an attempt to pin these questions down so that the viewer has the possibility to form their own answer through interaction with each piece.

The conflicts and ambivalences of the questions inform the choice of material and technique for each work. The methods of making are crucial to revealing new ideas and resolving thought processes intrinsic to the initial starting point of the piece.

Words by Stephanie Feuer

Drumstick

The adults were downstairs. Their voices mingled with the smell of turkey and came up through the heating vent in my older cousin Mitchell’s room. The windows of his room were all steamy. Outside the snow fell, perfect for sledding. We’d driven from New York to spend Thanksgiving with them in Scranton, Pennsylvania. It felt like nowhere.
We were inside because he didn’t like to play outdoors with me, because, I suspected I could throw a ball harder and shoot baskets better and I was a girl and only 8. He’d want to play football. He was 13 and stronger, but if I got a chance to run, he’d say I cheated. Then I’d cry and he’d tell the adults I was a sore loser. The adults usually believed him. Sometimes I was a sore loser, but mostly he hurt me.
He asked me if I ever played doctor with my friends. I told I’d played with my neighbor Larry, that summer in the miniature log cabin that decorated my parent’s suburban back lawn. Then Mitchell asked me to do something with him, a special game of doctor.
Why should I? I questioned him. His answer was the same answer he gave about mostly everything. “Because I lost a sister,” he’d say and half-close his dark brown eyes. His sister, Lisa, was a year older than me and had died at 6 of encephalitis. I didn’t really believe her death excused his behavior, but I couldn’t argue with it.
It seemed an odd thing to do. It wasn’t anything I’d heard of, and I thought I’d heard a lot because I’d spent so much time at the nursing home my father ran. I knew all about health conditions, catheters and cheating boyfriends from eavesdropping on the nurses. What Mitchell was talking about I hadn’t heard of.
I stared at the molding. It was a red and white stencil my aunt had done herself. She was crafty like that, and a really good cook. Even my grandmother said she made the best version of the family stuffing recipe. I liked to cook, too, and longed to be in the kitchen with the good smells and women.
Mitchell grabbed me by the shoulder and pulled me towards him. He unzipped his pants, and with his hand at the back of my neck, pushed me towards his lap. My face rubbed against the navy blue carpet. It burned the skin of my cheek. There were red flecks in the carpet. Eraser residue. I struggled, but he was bigger. He held me down for a moment. It was hard to breathe.
“Suck like a lollipop,” he told me. It was kind of squishy, not like anything I’d had in my mouth before. I didn’t understand why this strange act was what he wanted so much, or why he got away with everything, just cause his sister had died.
I heard the wood stairs creak. I froze. Was this something I’d get in trouble for?
“Its turkey time,” my father announced in a jovial voice, stopping on a step half way up the stairs.
I jerked at the sound of his voice. I must have hurt Mitchell, or maybe he was afraid of being caught. He pushed my head away, hard, slapped me, and zipped up his pants.
“He’s hitting me,” I said and started to cry. “Cry baby, cry baby,” he sneered.
“Work it out, you two,” my father said, no longer sounding so cheerful, “and come down to eat.”
My uncle carved the beautifully cooked turkey, its juices escaping from its bronzed skin and puddling on the big wood cutting board. I took my seat at the table, next to Mitchell. My uncle asked my father and me if we’d like to share a drumstick. You take it, I told my father, I don’t have much of an appetite.

“Drumstick,” by Stephanie Feuer, was originally published in Mom Egg Review Vol. 13. www.momeggreview.com.

Art by Sarah Irvin

The Measurement Project
Each day of pregnancy, Sarah measured her stomach at navel height with a piece of yarn. The Measurement Project is the accumulation of this daily ritual.

Prose by Anelie Crighton

Pregnant with meaning

Pregnancy, as experienced, is not a metaphor, but a challenge: those solid thumps to the ribcage are reminders that much as you might like to think of yourself as a brain on a stick, an intellect tethered to the complex technology that is the body, you are in fact a placental mammal. You need to work? No, you need to nap. You want to stride along like you always did, long straight steps, fast and confident? By week 30 it will be all you can do not to waddle.
My walking mantra is, ‘There is nothing wrong with your legs. There is nothing wrong with your legs.’ This is strictly true. There is, however, something wrong with my feet (swollen), pelvis (slowly disconnecting), lower back (hurting), stomach muscles (stretched), blood pressure (low) and brain (sorry?). My horizons have gradually contracted. My slow pace and ready fatigue make the ten minute tram ride into the centre of town seem the equal of a day-long trek. At home I must intersperse activity with rest, reaching for another glass of iced water while I prop up my comically puffy feet. I feel hot all the time, and am immensely fond of very cold drinks and ice cream. Very cold ice cream drinks are also acceptable.
The tenant has been excellent company. Once his movements were detectable at 22 weeks, his wriggles and stretches and somersaults were delightful. While he still had the room he moved rapidly and erratically, brief flutterings and jabs like the strangest indigestion you’ve ever had. As he’s grown, his reachings have slowed, become more definite, more obviously in response to changes in his environment. Any time I lean forward, a small foot firmly reminds me that he does not appreciate cramped lodgings. I have pointed out that at 5’10” I offer quite spacious accommodation, but the kicks continue.
One day my husband caught a glimpse of me dressing and said in wonder, ‘You look beautiful.’ I found this astonishing; I look like a woman who’s swallowed a basketball, perhaps to distract attention from her thick ankles and dry hair. I have had a protruding belly for months yet still misjudge my movements, my round new boundary regularly encountering table edges and door frames. Numerous sleepless nights have hung a crescent under each eye. The fit of my voluminous maternity pants gets a little more snug each week. There is beauty here?
Observed and observing, one’s progress is constantly at issue – are you gaining weight, feeling worse, sleeping less? Is the baby growing longer and fattening up, does it move ten times an hour twice a day? Once you’ve exhausted the present, the future beckons: that unpredictable day (early? late?) when the contractions begin, and the x hours thereafter when you’ll breathe and relax and finally make up your mind about an epidural.

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Art by Beth Goobic

Metamorphose is an ongoing conversation in clay about the journey of becoming a mother and being a mother. It takes place in this study of a common utilitarian household item, the mug. These mug forms are endowed with the presence of both vulnerability and strength. They celebrate the glorified transformation of the pregnant body, but they bring visibility and conversation to the continuing transformation of the body and person after birth. That they are mugs points to the commonness of everyday lived experiences by wo/men in motherhood and motherwork. Each mug is entirely different reflecting the fact that the experience of mothering is unique to each individual person, even though motherwork is quite often mistaken as a universal concept. These kinds of assumptions about the universality of mothering actually makes the personal experiences of each person doing it invisible. Metamorphose is meant to resist that kind of assumption. The mugs are a reflection of the pregnant body, the very beginning of the anatomical journey of the female body as it enters motherhood but the mugs also celebrate and acknowledge the transformation of the female body after pregnancy, post birth, which in our society, is a less celebrated transformation, and a less visible journey. Post birth bodies deserve the patience, celebration and glorification that childbearing bodies receive. Post-birth bodies are spacious, healing and rehabilitating, while still maintaining a new additional life. The mugs acknowledge, give presence, and beautify the body post birth. These mug forms acknowledge the more subtle but continual anatomical journey our bodies endure during motherwork and also a person’s transformative and altering personal journey throughout motherwork. Pertaining to motherwork this conversation in clay is not exclusive to birth mothers, but opens up this conversation to all caregivers that take on motherwork. A man, or a non-biological parent may not physically go through the birthing journey but that person can experience the altering and changing of their own bodies and spirits throughout the journey of motherwork. The common daily motions endured during motherwork, and the effects and marks that motherwork experiences leave on our bodies are also portrayed here in these mugs. With the unknown journey and struggles that each child brings, caregivers are altered in person as they journey with that child through the highs and lows of each experience. This altering of person throughout the lifelong journey of motherhood, so private and personal, joyful and painful, messy and beautiful is celebrated and acknowledged in these basic everyday utilitarian objects. Like motherwork, the mugs are individual, unique and beautifully imperfect. The forms are altered, and asymmetrical, with undulating rims and drippy glazes. I choose to alter the form as a way to represent and interpret how we are altered in person and body in motherwork. The mugs are fired in a salt and soda kiln resulting in much surface variation among the cups. Each of these mugs are a functional sculpture and an experience, inviting the viewer to apply their own experiences in motherhood and motherwork to the conversation. The vulnerable yet commanding forms salute the invisible labor of caregiving and everyday experiences of motherwork, which involves a metamorphosis of person and body. Metamorphose is an artistic attempt to make the invisibility of motherhood and mother-work visible in households and workspaces via an everyday utilitarian object.

Words by Nancy Cook

Close to the Heart

I am planning the perfect tattoo. Where to have it applied is not in question: It is going to cover my entire chest. But beyond that, I have some decisions to make.
My relationship with my breasts has always been complicated. So much different than Joel’s relationship with his penis. Joel’s penis has a name. The penis is named Max, basic and simple. Max has a personality, so Joel believes, a life of its own, completely separate from Joel’s. Well, not completely separate, of course. Our son Aaron views his little penis in much the same way. Aaron thinks his penis is his friend, although he hasn’t given it (him?) a name. Joel is convinced this is evidence of relational capacity. I say if you are in conversation with a body part, addressing it as Other, that’s distancing, not intimacy. But to be candid, I don’t care enough to get into a real discussion about it.
It’s strange to me because my breasts have always been part of the integrated whole that is my body. This was true even before I had real breasts, when I was a kid pushing my flat chest up and out so I could look like my Mom or Charlie’s Angels or Madonna. I’d check out my reflection in a mirror or a sun-glared store window, and there they’d be, future boobs, more real than imaginary. It’s like my body always knew breasts would be part of the family, and now they’re participants in a full-fledged collaboration, right in there with my ears, my toes, my heart. My body parts communicate pretty well, the soles to the brain, the nostrils to the spine, the nipples on direct-dial to the vulva. My breasts are as essential as, and no more essential than, other parts, say, my tongue or my hands.
At the same time, I’ve often felt as if these beauties were not mine alone. They’re so, you know, out there. Visible. Available for public notice. Something like marigolds in a house-front flower bed or news of winning even a minor prize. Joel would probably take issue with that. He likes that he has private viewings. He coos, he tastes. Sometimes he plays them, left side against the right. He might grasp tightly, squeeze hard, but never roughly. I understand Joel’s attraction to my breasts, if not his proprietariness. I like personal time with my breasts too. They are nice to touch and very responsive. Especially when an effort is made.

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