"the mother of invention" painting

Every week I attend a Baby-Parent Group at the local hospital.  It has been a really great choice to attend, helping me to gain insight on infant development. This group is also solely responsible for my social life in Juneau.  

One week the group leader announced the Breastfeed Coalition of Alaska (and Juneau) was accepting entries for their annual art show. The piece could be any medium but needed to follow their criteria as a representation of what breastfeeding is to the artist. That was such a heavy thought.  

What does breastfeeding mean to me?

While I am grateful to be able to feed my child, getting to this point was not easy. Breastfeeding a premie was complicated. It meant specialists, devices, so much pumping, and so much patience. For all the difficult parts, it was the only thing I could do for Glenn as we were both patients on separate floors of the same hospital. Me recovering from cesarean surgery and him being preterm.  It was a rough start.

This I mulled over as I thought about how I could express it in art. Eventually, I thought of creating a wallpaper background that showed all these things, all these things needed to simply feed my child. They were there, they were necessary, but now they are simply background.

I chose acrylic for the medium because it was accessible and worked with my time constraints. 

 Once I knew the items I wanted, I sketched each.

 It took a few thumbnails to find the composition.

 For the figure I took a few self portraits.  I ended up taking a bit from each image.

 In the end, this tiny cooking spatula was my preferred paint palette.

 To create the pattern I drew a grid and used a graphite transfer to draw out the repeat.

 I also used graphite transfer to place the figures.  I did this because I wanted to maintain my crisp lines and not damage my repeat.

 The Mother of Invention. 16"x16", Acrylic on gesso board.

Isaac, Glenn and I went to see the show for April's First Friday.  I was surprised to find I had been awarded second place.  It was easy to see that all the participants put so much into their very personal work.  I felt quite honored to have my work selected for an award.