I started this artwork about four weeks ago. It began as a doodle on paper, just mucking around with ideas and musings about my upcoming birth and labour. A week later I decided to mount the sketch onto board and use it as the beginning of a mixed media painting.
Usually I name my artworks after they’re complete, but this time was different. While I was creating it I named it ‘Meet Me Where I Am’, both as a way to connect with my unborn baby, and as a way to meet and accept myself with my fears, my excitement, and the unknown as I was feeling in that moment; using my art to work through my feelings and emotions consciously.
That night, I went into labour (the title must have worked!)
Since then I have only had time to work on it once, and these pics are where I’m up to at this moment. It feels almost finished – except for the bird – I can’t quite get it to ‘feel’ right.
The little bird represents Baby Max … and for the first time, I’m having trouble making the icon show the intensity of love and connection I feel for my little man. I’ve worked and reworked the birdie, but I still can’t get it ‘right’.
I think it’s because I can’t pin Maxie down. He’s changing so much at the moment, he’s fluid, he’s pure, he’s my little angel, he’s not a fixed ‘thing’ I can interpret. Maybe this birdie representation is right for now. Or it was right for then. Maybe each time I look at it, my feelings will change along with him. Maybe I’ll never again be able to quantify my feelings for my son, because they’re larger than that.
Maybe it will always be unfinished. Maybe, through Maxie, I’ve met the infinite. And that’s a little bit hard to paint.
C xx
