I am a multi-tasker. I used to suspect I was ADD, but perhaps I have just learned how to organize my scattered thinking habits into good use. There are so many things in this big old world that draw my interest.
I love books. I love how they are containers on the outside, treasure boxes with a hinge and then when you flip them open a whole different world is hidden inside. As you open, the medium changes from a physical object to the medium of writing.
So yesterday I began reading "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett. I read half the book before I forced myself to close its hinge in the wee hours last night. I woke this morning, er afternoon, with thoughts of Georgia. Black Georgia, my long lost nanny.
Just as the characters of that book connected with each other to solve a larger puzzle, so I added Georgia's & my puzzle pieces to theirs and the puzzle story image grew larger, deeper, and clearer. While Skeeter mourned the loss of her black nanny Constantine, I traveled the road of revelation alongside her as she realized she always thought of Constantine in connection with her own loss and never from the point of view of Constantine's pain. She grew from being the needy child seeking her loss to the adult who doubles back to care for others.
Reading the book, out it comes, I miss my sweet black mama. When my grandmother let Georgia go, it left an insatiable black hole in my heart. My grandmother knew it & told me she always regretted it. She never said that she knew she could not love me like Georgia could but I suspect she knew that, too.
I have one photo of Georgia holding me. I have never seen myself so happy and carefree. It was a time when I used my whole being to communicate, before I used words. Maybe that is why it is so hard to find the words to express my feelings about it now.
So I multi-task. Were you wondering how I would get back to my original topic? I realize I multi-task in medium only. Everything I do seems to be a search for Georgia. Writing, painting, singing, cooking, mothering, crying. Different mediums, same search, same topic.
Yesterday I read a comment on one of my paintings on my website. The comment was made by Jeffrey Holly, one of Harry's ex students, now an artist living in Atlanta. Jeffrey is one of the most insightful artists I have ever met. Jeffrey and that book made me realize my multi-mediums are the same single search.
Here is the painting:
And here is Jeffrey's comment:
" This is a very peaceful piece, ms ally. There lies this beautiful
separation between these opposing blue forces. I wonder what it is you
think upon?"
I looked at the painting again. It had been a very long time since I sat still enough to listen to what my paintings had to tell me. The last time I listened well was when I did a series of paintings with some quilts of my grandmother's, patterning, stars, and thick edges. Those paintings taught me about my inherited codependent behavior patterns, my search for specialness, and my boundary issues. Jeffrey's comment made me realize I have been very disappointed in my paintings thinking they are shallow and saying nothing, however I suspect the problem is not the paintings, but that I haven't been listening.
I know, I know, I am supposed to dialogue with my paintings. Thought I was. I wasn't. "Dialogue" comes from dia = two & logue = speak. Two speak. So when one is speaking the other should be listening, right?
I initially replied to Jeffrey that the painting was about my marriage. As I listened to the painting further, it echoed something the Help book was telling me, that Black Georgia will always be with me. She is the peacefulness, the certainty. But missing her will also always be with me. The loss of her is the vast seemingly unfathomable space between me and those I love. So the vast space is peaceful and certain, but also a distancing.
Going out to the studio to listen some more...