moms

Though these paintings have been posted before on this blog, I am revisiting them as I have thinking so much lately of mothers grandmothers and children.  Another artist I follow has been posting often of her paintings of Madonna images ( that is you Janet ),  I love the freedom and expressiveness of her work.  My work is  much more, hmmm how does one describe it, anal?  Too often does detail consume me and I forget the whole.

 This one of the Amish woman was done for a book published years ago called Grandmothers Wonderful Wisdom.

 This one was done for a book proposal on mothers and lullaby poetry, the Koala and Polar bear pictures on the sidebar of the blog were part of the proposal. It was not accepted.

The last painting is one of my favorites. Though it was done years ago, I still like it, usually I hate my own work.  This painting is full of symbolism, from the ossuary motifs to the pomegranates and gold in the border.

For a very long time  now, I have had a dearth of creative spirit. Perhaps if I re-visited this favored motif it would regenerate the barren soul? I don't know.  Faces of children enchant me, the relationships between women and their offspring is so interesting to me.  A man can walk away from their child and sadly too often do, but a woman cannot ever totally sever herself from her child.
 Even if a child is born unwanted or even hated the bond is still there,  I think often of a woman I know who has lived a horrific life of betrayal and misery with family who used her, sold her repeatedly,and left her mentally and physically broken yet she still desires to love her mother, a nearly impossible task.  Occasionally her mother reaches out to her but she has learned the relationship is so toxic, for self preservation she has little to do with any family. Yet the desire for love is still there on both sides. 
I have come to the conclusion and it is grows stronger with time that our family is an eternal concept not just that family will continue on but family is a continuation of relationships before this mortal life. 
We must have loved our family before we came here, before they and us were corrupted and changed by the sin, temptations and sorrows of this world.  We must have loved them before the veil of forgetfulness fell between  us and  our immortality.

As you know, those who read  my blog, we had a flood in the basement, there was a large wooden chest that needed to be moved, it was mostly filled with my mothers things, stashed from her death twelve years ago.
Much of it was stuff I had given her or made for her, several porcelain dolls I made from scratch, with complex clothing etc, and I realized once again how often I had tried to "buy" my mothers love.  We had a difficult relationship to say the least, I was a different child, artistic, and could not toe the line of perfection she so so wanted from me, my sister could and did therefore she was favored.  There was no unconditional love in our house.  I was over thirty when I finally realized my mother did love me she did not like me there is a difference.
The point I am trying to made I guess, though it seems I am rambling, is I loved my mother, she loved me and the love was there long before we entered the mother daughter relationship. 

The relationships between mother and child, glorious, difficult, tense rewarding, exhausting, trying, uplifting, refining, satisfying, heart-breaking and permanent.
How can we ever deny or sever the relationship with this person who by the grace of God gives us our physical body and sets us on the path to eternity? This is the most sacred of Gods requests of us, to work in conjunction with Him to prepare a physical body for another spirit.  This is sacred territory, birth, it is so close to God himself and His creative power.  There is no greater joy in this life and no greater trial, expect maybe marriage.

Well that's enough for now, I gotta go feed the chickens.