Accepting the Unexpected

Curated by Anna McKeown in partnership with Artist/Mother Podcast

Pregnancies, weather events, pandemics -- what do we do when life “happens?” How does the creation of artwork aid with communicating the feelings that come with these unexpected events? With special attention to the context of each accepted artwork, this exhibition explores how artists process unexpected life events through their artistic practice.

The work selected for this exhibition is both vulnerable and beautiful, and we are deeply grateful to the artists for trusting Stay Home Gallery with their stories.

“Shame Object 4”, Vinyl, fabric scraps, thread 6"x 8" x 15" 2020, $400 | Jay Sanborn

“Shame Object 4”, Vinyl, fabric scraps, thread 6"x 8" x 15" 2020, $400 | Jay Sanborn

Accepting The Unexpected Work Statements

Amy J. Dyck

About three years ago I experienced a major health crisis that shook my world, sent me collapsing into a wheelchair, filled me with pain, and shoved my family onto an emotional rollercoaster as we fought to find out how I was to survive, what was wrong, and if there was a way to be whole.

I used my work to express the feelings I had of the monstrousness of my changing body as well as the monstrousness of the situation that brought so much fear. I made marks to help me explore the utility and limits of hope. My work became a lifeline for processing grief, learning to accept, and practicing self love.

Art has the ability to hold within what we cannot bear to say (or don't know how to), and to oer us the space to create within its boundaries what we need in our lives.

Kathryn Rodrigues

My current work explores ideas of transcendence within a domestic setting and the psychology of motherhood. As a primary caregiver of young children, the majority of my time over the last several years has been spent at home which can often feel isolating and mundane. These circumstances have only been exacerbated during the pandemic. Where there once had been short breaks in the day to allow myself time to recharge, make art, and work as a teaching artist, that all disappeared in March of 2020.

As the pandemic has continued so have my feelings of containment, exhaustion and anxiety, as well as my desire for space, connection to the natural world, safety and autonomy. I began an ongoing series of self-portraits taken in our yard and around the exterior edges of our house. By choosing to photograph using medium format film, I created space and time to explore and slowly compose each photograph. As I wandered outside alone I was confronted with the objects my children interact with regularly such as a child-sized rake, tent, hammock, piles of leaves and Halloween decorations. These are all items commonly found in suburban backyards but create a sense of the absurd when interacted with by an adult with no children visible in the frame. I also used my body as a way to delineate the edges and boundaries imposed by both motherhood and the pandemic which speaks to my continual investigation of the interior and exterior both psychological and physical. These images capture the dichotomy of my liminal moments of freedom outdoors while also remaining restricted to our property, moments I spent alone but also in plain sight of our children and neighbors, longing for connection but also for the security of separation.

Brigitte Coovert

My work explores the lingering impact that illness, trauma, and life have on the mind and body of the individual. Pulling heavily from my own diagnosis with an autoimmune disease in 2017, using intentionally unpredictable materials, the mixed media pieces explore loss of control and the physical manifestations of illness, as well as a contrast between destruction and the beauty of human resilience. This triptych is part of a series of works that I made using the color of my medication as inspiration.

Anna Wallace

No one expects to have a miscarriage when they get pregnant. After I lost my first pregnancy and learned how common it was, I almost wondered why I didn’t see it coming. The statistics started haunting me. The comments that were made by healthcare professionals, family, and friends started haunting me. Wondering what might have caused it started haunting me.

The slow, methodical process of embroidery calms me and allows me to process information. I divided the statistics and little snippets of phrases bouncing around in my head into three categories: likelihood of miscarriage, possible causes, and comments made in response to learning about a pregnancy loss - some comforting, others not so much. Cootie catchers, a childhood game of chance, has three sections - an exterior, middle, and interior folds - perfect to hold these words and create an object of meditation for my loss.

From the start of my motherhood journey each day seemed important. I started one corner of a patchwork quilt and recorded each day that passed with an X. As several cycles passed I added patches to the quilt to fit the growing number of Xs. The quilt grew as I fell pregnant and stayed pregnant for 96 days. I don’t know what I thought when I started this piece. That it would be joyful and sentimental? Of course I didn’t expect the sadness and despair. After the loss I also didn’t expect the complexity of the emotions I would experience being pregnant again and carrying my son to term. Like the text on the cootie catcher, these Xs were my daily touchstone, tracking my path towards motherhood.

Jeanne Verdoux

I am a sponge. I absorb everything. Unexpected life events come at me like waves and I draw to channel the emotions they bring with them. When I lost my parents, I crossed an ocean to forget, my life boat was drawing. When I became a mother, drawing was my anchor. When cancer attacked my body, drawing was my buoy. The act of drawing is vital to me. Together, my drawings make up series of images narrating the story of segments of my life.

My subject is the female figure. I am currently working on ‘Female Vaisselle’, a series of large ink drawings. The female figure is represented as a symbolic vessel, a hollow container with human attributes. The sometimes humanized vessel explores the body as a storage for interior life experiences.

The drawings are made on single, queen and king size ‘mattress papers’ found in the trash of a mattress factory. This thick paper has been damaged, pierced and embossed by the mattress springs. The marks and rips are an integral part of my compositions.

Jay Sanborn

This series came out of an exercise that is commonly used in trauma therapy. Of course, trauma is never an expected life event, but it is something that the survivor deals with for the rest of their life. In this exercise, the survivor is told to visualize the shame around a traumatic event or memory as an object, to examine its sharp edges or soft places, to see where it squishes, or skids, where it is rigid and where it is flexible. These objects are physical documents of that process, allowing me and the viewer to hold shame in a way that is manageable and potentially comforting.

Jennifer Shelton

"I Promise" deals with the hospitalization of a loved one who struggles with mental health issues. Many hours I sat outside the hospital trying to cope with what was occurring in both my daughter's and my own life at that time. While she had had mental issues for years, I never thought we would get to the point of hospitalization. The event was truly unexpected. Through the process of embroidering this piece I was able to process the event in a way that allowed me to remain strong for both my daughter and myself. "Promise?" is what she has asked me since she was a little girl when she is uncertain about something. And "I promise" is how I've always responded. This work helped me fulfill my promise that everything would turn out o.k.

gwen charles

Lately, I have been reflecting on the familiar matters of illnesses, caretaking, aging, loss and grief as I have unexpectedly been taking care of a sick child full-time the past two years. In my recent videos, plants are being taken care of, becoming stands-in and metaphors for the patient and caregiver relationship.

Caressing the spines of a dying barrel cactus abandoned in a 105-year-old glass greenhouse. I had photographed the healthy cactus only two weeks previously, and returned to find it collapsed and rotted from the center. I tried to comfort the dying cactus as best I could by spooning and caressing it. I felt I had failed to protect it, deserted a second time, a reflection on my caretaking abilities.

Anna McKeown & Artist/Mother Podcast

About the Curator

Anna McKeown is a fiber artist and curator living in Nashville, TN. In her work she explores her mental health journey and personal relationships using hand-embroidery and quilting techniques.

Anna is the Gallery Director for the educational Marnie Sheridan Gallery at Harpeth Hall School. Here, Anna brings a strong focus to artwork created by contemporary womxn artists and fiber artists. Anna is represented by Roaring Artist Gallery and has shown her work with Art Mums United, Southside Gallery in Oxford, MS, and the Yeiser Art Center in Paducah, KY. She has been featured in Candy Floss Magazine and recently completed a residency with Stay Home Gallery Residency in Paris, TN.

About Artist/Mother

What started as a podcast has morphed into a big, bold, beautiful community. In December 2018, Kaylan started recording episodes from her living room…reaching out to the small circle of artists who were mother’s that she knew and asking to hear more about their story. Episodes were released beginning in February of 2019 and within a few weeks artist/mothers from all over started reaching out and connecting. The rest, as they say, is sort of history… a retreat happened, a Crit group was formed and we have grown our community and tweaked our offerings and hope to continue to do this work for many many years to come. As long as there will be people making art there will be mothers making art and we hope there is always a space to uplift and support their art practices and well being.

While our community is rooted in the artist/mother identity, we want to support any female-identifying artist in the world…artists of all backgrounds, mediums and education levels. We don’t believe you have to be a mother, to be a mother-er and we believe every artist in every phase of their career needs community and has something of value. We welcome trans and cis women as well as genderqueer, and non-binary people. Black Lives Matter in this community and we hope our podcast and programming alway represent the underrepresented in our society and provides all of us a place to gather, grow, and share our stories and art practices.

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