Wings

Sometimes I wonder what I am doing.  You know, with parenthood, with trying to be a fully realized person, with art.  There are SO MANY artists out there, so many wonderful, talented, driven artists with really great hair and darling babies and so much more energy than I have.  I scroll through Instagram and depress myself with all the people I follow who A) make a new painting every day --or like 3 new paintings--or B) just have talent oozing from their golden fingertips like they’ve eaten Midas. 

Then I make something that I think is really cool.  Like today.

Actually this isn’t something I made today, it is something that became fully realized today.  Or almost.  I still have a little “finishing” to do.  But, people!  It happened.  I brought some things together that didn’t go together before.  I had a problem inside an idea and I solved it.  It looks pretty.  It means something.  It WORKED.

If I were in better shape I’d be jumping up and down.

Can I tell you about it?

It’s called Flight Pattern.  Or Flight Path.  Still thinking. 

It started a year ago as a coaster – or really a remnant of resin from another project.  I had a little square silicon mold and I poured the leftover resin in it, then added some thematic elements: a wing, an owl face, some feathery ruffles, the word “flight”, a little gold.  It was cool.  No idea what I was going to do with it. 

The next time I had some resin leftover, I made another.  They developed in theme.  They were all girl power.  They had feathers and wings and metals and words about the future and flying and… girls.  Every one different. 

They weren’t even my colors.  I didn’t have a plan.  Every now and then I’d take them out and think about what they could do. 

Turns out they were lousy coasters – too uneven.  They became “tiles.”

But a funny thing happened.  They started to mean something.  I realized I was putting together little snapshots of girlhood and feminism. 

It is not new for me to struggle with how being a woman looks for me and what that means for my daughter.  I still have all the hang-ups of wanting my child to be polite and sweet, but I have seen the TED talk and the articles about how that parenting approach only ensures that she will be left behind after elementary school and trained to only follow the rules, never to push them.  She’ll be well-behaved, but never fly above expectations.  I don’t want that.  That’s what happened to me.  I want something different for her.  She’s funny and so very, very people smart in a way that I never was.  I want to praise her crazy-strong body and her loud voice, her chance-taking and her questions.  And even in wanting those things, I hold her back in little ways.  That’s on me.  It doesn’t mean I don’t see and appreciate the fierce joy and possibilities that her self holds.  I do, but I'm not always the best at fostering them.  I’m learning that I’m not going to be the one that is able to teach her how to go beyond.  I only have to get out of her way so she can rise.  All that.  Tile by tile.  A little gold.  A butterfly we found on the front porch.  Some darkness, some places clear. 

Still, these thoughts were a stack of tiles, connected in color and theme, but going nowhere. 

Then my mother-in-law brought me some ceramic pieces from a totem she made for her garden.  And I started thinking structurally, how I could connect her pieces into a hanging sculpture, or a resin piece that would echo the circle and line abstract work I’ve been doing.  And in thinking about how I could make a piece for her ceramics, I thought maybe I could make a piece for the girl tiles.

I turned a deep panel over and painted it and poured clear resin, then added a path in copper and white and blacks.  It sunk and moved as it took two days to harden, but turned out pretty cool.  Now, how to attach the tiles?  I was initially thinking I would drill a hole in the resin and hammer in pegs, but I went to Home Depot to see if I could find something better than just pegs.  I did.  I have no idea what they do in real life, but they are these little copper tubes that flare a bit on one end – just enough to hold if I poured another layer of resin, which I did.  First I had to mark where I wanted the tiles and make sure the pegs would stay in the tiles.  Found the right drill bit to keep the tiles on the copper pegs, and… (angels singing.)

I mean.  I just love this stuff.  It’s a weird sort of problem solving, making something like this.  It has absolutely no purpose, other than depicting my own sort of feminism motherhood journey. (The path goes down, gets dark, then goes up.)  The tiles are even interchangeable; it doesn’t have to be MY journey.  But dang.  I just love it so much.  It’s like pulling out thoughts I didn’t even know I had and making them physical.  That has to mean something, right?  Being able to say something with things? 

Maybe someday, when my girl and I can’t stand even looking at each other and she doesn’t think I understand a single thing about her life, maybe something I make will have a voice she can hear.  Maybe she’ll see herself in the skateboarding silhouette or the “future interests” I have sharing space with music in this piece.

Maybe she’ll understand we both make our own paths, but I tried to let her fly.