This painting feels like an intentional reckoning with the past decade
and essentially being willing to trust the new paradigm (while it lasts lol).
The origins of "aftermath" originally comes from agriculture specifically referring to the second mowing or crop of grass in a season. It's derived from the Old English "æfter" (after) and "mæð" (mowing).
I have been processing the last decade of my life after divorce with children; after my new husband has brushed with death multiple times; after I experienced previously unimaginable success as an artist. Success, while it is so wonderful, can also be very destabilizing on the other end of the spectrum. So it is like I have been stretched far in seemingly opposite directions and at times have felt like my feet are dangling in the air. It has been the most incredible and most difficult chapter by far. I and my children have mourned and adapted and grown in countless and unpredictable ways. I would not wish the devastating challenges on anyone, but I am nonetheless grateful.
This painting feels like an intentional reckoning with the past and an honest effort at being willing to trust the new paradigm (while it lasts lol). The placement of the shapes hold space like architectural elements and the four light blue icicle-ish shapes in the top center represent the earned realizations and strength, like “trophies” for each one of us in my family. And always, sprinkled in--the deep black--like that found between the translucent green leaf shapes on the left hand side of the painting—representing the void, chaos. The overall composition is like a tall, protective “figure,” a recurring theme in my work.
During the creation of this painting, I was also reading Rachel Cusk’s book, “Aftermath: on Marriage and Separation.” The ideas in her book summarized my experience and her words felt like a salve coinciding with the culmination of this significant period of my life. Particularly resonant were the ideas around the lost normalcy that one faces amidst massive change. Cusk writes, “This ceaseless effort to manufacture normality is a kind of forger’s art, so laborious compared with the facility that created the original.” I found myself trying to “manufacture normality” countless times after the divorce and after my new husband’s close calls. And it was a fruitless and futile endeavor. It was like I was trying to force fit pieces of a puzzle into a different puzzle.
I don’t remember when, but at some point I must have surrendered to the momentum of the change and gave myself over to the flow. You’re supposed to do that right? --Like the Zen Masters and Yogis. But in so doing, I felt I had failed at protecting my children from the onrush of life. If you are a mother, you will understand this insane instinct and self-inflicted role of Grand Controller.
Eventually, though, we learn that maintaining this role is exhausting and at some point you do give up and let things be as they are (or maybe it’s the natural course of healing). It can be terrifying or heartening. Cusk writes, “The thing is, I believe in chaos now: it’s normality I’ve lost faith in.” And I get that. And at least for now, I am happier this way—believing in chaos and living in the aftermath. As Cusk tells, “It is aftermath, the thing that happens once reality has occurred.”
And reality will keep on keeping on. And I will plant seeds, reap harvests, endure storms and till the fields, shake my fist at the sky, lay down on the ground and weep, and pick myself back up and live (like we all do) in the second harvest, the aftermath.