Hormonal Art

Phew! Well, I think I have finally recovered from posting too often at the beginning of this month. And I have felt the need to post again.

I have been reading the book Birthing From Within by Pam England and Rob Horowitz. It is incredibly interesting to me, because it talks about birth through art.

I LOVE art. I have always felt a special draw towards artistic creative outlets. I have fond memories of finger painting and large bottles of tempura paint from my elementary school days. When I was a teenager, I found my dad's old acrylic and oil paints from when he was a young man with artistic desires. Surprisingly, the paint hadn't dried out, and I began experimenting with my talents in earnest. I found that my emotions came out on the cardboard, poster or canvas (really, whatever I could get my hands on) in brightly colored, abstract forms. I experimented with other techniques, but I always came back to the style that I felt did the best at capturing what I wanted. Stark lines. Flowing curves. Bold colors. Abstract. Emotion.

When I feel too full of emotion, whether positive or negative, I sit down with a pencil and paper. I either sketch out a painting (usually when things are positive) or I write poetry (my typical negative emotional outlet). I find it highly interesting that my emotions tend to require different media. And it pleases me that I haven't written a single poem about my husband, Bug or being a mother. But I HAVE done paintings for them! (I am actually working on a painting for my husband right now! Well...not now but...you know!)

The birth art book has me really excited to get pregnant again (of course, I have been excited....so when is it gonna happen already???) because I want to do more birth art! For some reason, I just don't think it would be right of me to do birth art without being pregnant. But, when I was pregnant with Bug, I actually did do birth art. I guess it is a natural thing for artistically inclined people. (And, I'm not bragging about my talent there, I'm just trying to nicely address how obsessed I am with wanting to be an artist!)

Here is the painting I did when I first found out I was pregnant with Bug, it is titled "New Life":


This is the painting that I sketched out a couple weeks before Bug was born. I finished the painting while in prodromal labor a week before Bug was actually born. It is titled "Birth":


And this is a painting that I did after Bug was born. It is titled "Nursing Feet". It came about because I would sit in my glider for hours at a time while nursing Bug, and I would amuse myself by making different shapes with my feet:



I used to live with my grandpa, while I attended a nearby university. He would make fun of me all the time for being so abstract, and artsy, and hippie-ish. (And I would make fun of him for being a concrete, geeky, chemistry-lovin' engineer...which is actually what I ended up marrying, so it's probably a good thing I had to deal with the old geezer for a couple years! By the way, I do love my grandpa!) So, I am well aware that there are people out there that don't appreciate abstract art. Heck, there are even people out there that don't appreciate art of any kind. But, that is just too bad for them! I think more women should embrace their inner artist and experiment with some hormonal art!

I can't remember if I had linked to this before or not, but I have already done a post about my "Hormonal Paintings" on my family blog. They are all the same paintings, but with some different words.