Still life as self-portrait, and some thoughts on grief

Last week I did this watercolor of two grape hyacinths from my community garden. I had actually forgotten that I'd planted them in the fall, along with some bright-colored tulips. Muscari, grape hyacinths, were always a favorite flower of mine when I was a child, partly because they were early, and partly because I was intrigued by the little bells of flowers along the stems that could be stripped off with one quick swipe of a finger, though of course that wasn't encouraged! I had never painted or drawn them before.

As the flowers sat in water over the next few days, on my drawing table at the studio, I began thinking about them. There was a single stem of lilies-of-the-valley in the same glass -- a handblown, very old drinking glass that my maternal grandfather had given me long ago; finally I realized what the three stems of flowers seemed to represent to me.

Today is the eleventh anniversary of my mother's death. It's been my practice to do a drawing or painting every year around this time that incorporates lilies-of-the-valley, which were in bloom when she died. So, over the weekend, I did the painting below.

"Only Child." Acrylic on prepared paper, 10" x 10", May 21, 2017.

An argument could be made that every personal, non-commissioned painting is a self-portrait of sorts: something impels us to choose the subject and take the time to do the work. Sometimes the deeper meaning doesn't become clear until years afterward. I'm glad I've done this particular series over time; unlike a written journal, the drawings and paintings contain a condensed, personal, and mostly-hidden code that reveals what I was thinking and feeling, and I appreciate this record more than words.

(2016)

I didn't realize I was missing my mother lately, but during the recent visit to my childhood home I was suddenly floored by grief, all the more intense because it was so unexpected. I have experienced enough grief in my life to know that it is unpredictable, and that it's better to acknowledge and allow it -- rather than fight it -- and ride it out. What I cannot know is how it will continue to affect me as my own life goes along, because it's not linear -- it doesn't fade away like a piece of music. It is more like the theme of a recurrent dream that appears, unbidden, in different forms over time, sometimes pure and sharp, sometimes combined with other people or events with which it had no original relation. If I step back and observe this, it is fascinating, but often it's extremely difficult to step back far enough to do that until some time has passed.

(2015)

The dead exist as they were, but we continue to change. In some ways, my mother did not -- could not -- know the person I am now, though she undoubtedly anticipated and thought about my later years, just as I think about what it will be like for the younger people I love when they are my age. By the same token, as I grow older and experience years that she lived before me, aspects of her experience come into my life that I never could have shared with her or understood. As in the dream, certain things combine that were once separate, even as the separation in time increases.

(2014)

Grief hurts because it illuminates the reality of our aloneness, but increasingly it feels to me like a series of gates that we must pass through in order to come to peace about loss, death, and the existential solitude of being human. Each gate is guarded by an unseen teacher who speaks to us in riddles, and the deciphering only comes to us through dreams, art, meditation, and solitude in nature: wherever we are able to loosen the hold of our ego and discursive, self-protective mind.

(2013)

(2013)

Comments

[Natalie]

Thoughtful and beautiful reflections and images, Beth. I identify with your comments on the grief of losing those we loved and still love and whose lives we were so deeply entangled with. I still miss my parents very much but can now be more detached about some aspects of my rapport with them over the years. I can see them better, perhaps, as individuals separate from me who lived years before I was born and who lived experiences I can never know much about. I sometimes have vivid dreams in which my mother and/or my father appear just as they were and it makes me wonder about after-life...is there such a thing? The question is absurd as there is no acceptable answer. Still, we ask it.

[Martine Pagé]

Beautiful post, in many many ways. I wish I could draw an appropriate response. Maybe I'll take a picture...

[Marly Youmans]

Lovely post. I wrote more but deleted it. Your post made me think strange thoughts. And I suppose that is good.

[Jean]

This is so beautiful and haunting, Beth. And your newest paintings are very fine, I think. xx

[Kathy Hughes]

Enjoyed this post Beth - very thought provoking. And always enjoy your paintings and the thoughts they conjure. Thanks!
xxoo

[Vanessa]

Your thoughts resonate deeply and are much appreciated. Lovely images as well. Late night but wanted to thank you for these gifts you share.

[Rachel Barenblat]

Oh, Beth, this post is so beautiful. I am moved by your description of grief as a series of gates through which we must pass. And I love the painting you just completed -- and seeing it juxtaposed with all the rest.

[Duchesse]

At times, the guardians step away to permit passage, but can only rarely be accessed by will or request. I treasure the dreams in which my parents appear and always wake longing for another glimpse, soon. They are never together, not sure what this means, or perhaps it would be unbearable.

Returning home, you are in a natural setting to grieve yet another anniversary.

[Chris Hughes]

Thanks for sharing Beth. Miss you guys <3

[Sharyn]

Beth, Your writing is brilliant. And I love your watercolors also. Like you I am moving away from working for a living and towards finding out what work I want to do for myself. I hope you'll come out with a book combining your word and art.