Self-Portrait Series "The Mother's return to self"

This series began with the playfulness of matching lipstick and nail polish. It turned out that I have a blindingly bright red orange color of both, so I put it on and the transformation was immediate. The name of the lipstick is "Femme Fatale". I decided to play with that layer and mix it with the base persona of "mother".

Well, for me the two don't mix very well. The femme fatale gets up late and parties all night. The mother goes to bed early and gets up early to take care of her children. Or so it supposedly is (it does not always work out that way). But a femme fatale can turn into a mother and vice versa. And that's where we get something interesting.

So in these portraits we get a bit of the vulnerability and a bit of the coquettishness and a touch of the wisdom behind aging. We get measured liberation, rejection of being defined by the every day objects of mothering (notice the bath toy and the toilet seat) and determination to not be pigeonholed. 

Ava noticed me setting up to take the pictures and in her stompy gait quickly arrived to bombard me with a million "Wha doing mami? Mami, mami, what doing mami?" I explained that I am setting up to take some self-portraits. She quickly grabbed the camera remote and started taking the pictures for me. It was nice. It was really easy to all of a sudden be able to pose freely. My little one did not stop taking the pictures until I indicated that we are done. It was a seamless collaboration, without that many words. And then this beautiful realization crept through the vine of my thoughts- even young children can feel the subtle shifts of mood that create unspoken communication during the creative process.

So bellow are some photos from the shoot that I edited in order to heighten the ideas behind them. I hope that they speak to you. I hope they help you undertake your own questioning of what's beneath the surface of a mother's persona. This type of question deeply motivates me- what is beneath, what is beneath, what is beneath the surface that we see. I can hardly ever look at something without questioning it especially if that something is widely accepted as a norm.

There are two other important aspects to mention- the use of hands to frame the face (inspired by the one and only Auguste Rodin, whose reproductions I grew up with and by Madonna's "Vogue" choreography), and the color processing I applied in order to create a slight surrealist feeling when it comes to perceiving skin (inspired by one of my most favorite artists who I revere beyond description- Louise Bourgeois).

And here is a quote by her:

"Sometimes it is necessary to make confrontation - and I like that." Louise Bourgeois

Labor, labor, labor. New moon. (thoughts on the creative process)

I have been obsessing about the creative process lately. It is always like this with me – struggles and bursts of ideas lead to more struggles. I tell her "listen". "Listen ". But she does not. I spin in circles. We spin in circles. Good ideas come and go as if they were mere waves on the waterfront of my mind. I don't even notice them. The recipe remains a mystery, I must come up with it myself.

Caught up in this kind of circling, it is always a challenge to move because there are no tangible results. I dream of my own studio. But I know I will take her there. She will want to open everything. She will want to tear everything. She will want to spill everything. I will want to let her. Just like I want to let her do that here, and I do. But I should not. There is carpet. The carpet of our home. As the caretaker of this carpet, I am also the one to clean it.

As the day progresses, frustration and negativity bubble. Nothing is done. Finally we get dressed and go out in the freezing cold on the coldest day of the winter here at the edge of New York City. As we walk to the store and as I push the carriage through the slushy ice, its little wheels unable to take the friction of the frozen snow, I hear my daughter muttering something to me. "Louder, I can't hear you". She points up. I look toward the perfectly clear darkening sky, visibility increased by the frigidity of the air, to see the tiny sliver of a moon that must've just "risen" in the hour before sunset. It is the thinnest most delicate moon I have seen in a long, long time. Perhaps ever. Later I discover that the moon in fact was setting, trailing behind and shadowing the sun. What an elusive, tricky move, dearest moon. How subtly capable you are to tug at our deepest of emotions. 

Gazing at the wispy crescent, I stop to snap a picture as bewildered drivers pass by and wonder who is that mother who would take her 2 and 1/2 year old out at 10F and walk. But it all starts to make sense to me. Creativity will come. The project will come. The beauty of the moment softens the creases around my eyes. I let go. Productivity is present after all. The birth of the piece will happen. It'll come tiny and barely detectable in the grand scheme of things, announced by my daughter.

Eggs and glue make a moon and robots

Two robots and a crescent.

The creative process.