Fetal Breasts

Fetal Breasts, mixed media on canvas paper, 12x16inches

This piece is from my first day of my intuitive painting class. The assignment was to explore with materials and make a piece about a dream or about your day. I rarely have dreams so I had no choice but to visually describe my mildly traumatic day. My day consisted of me feel sick, then having to go to Planned Parenthood (where I had already had a unsettling experience BUT just a disclaimer, despite Fetal Breasts, I support Planned Parenthood and I think it is a wonderful organization. So, with Planned Parenthood issues on my mind (abortion, pregnancy, reproductive anatomy, rape, etc.) I went to get peanut butter at Jewel. Trader Joe's does not have my favorite peanut butter. At Jewel I watched a mother and child screaming at each other, then hitting, beating, running, more screaming--it was terrible. Then, I went home, ate some peanut butter and went to my first class.

Detail 1

So at first this was a fetal image sagging over a pile of ragged spikes. Piles. Like the mom and kid fighting on the floor. I realized that my interpretation of a fetus is kind of wrong anatomically so it kind of became breasts. I used pumice (like humus for painting) to add some shape and rugged texture to the fetus/breasts. The the cord, not sure which cord, kind of becomes a neck.

Detail 2

I mocked the black and gray fetal image with pink wall paper like stripes. Counteracting. Irony. Kitsch. The striped of wallpaper are also like jail bars. Again, who is trapped? Mom? Kid? Both trapped together? Trapped away from each other?

There is a lot to this piece. It was one of those days I could have spent the whole day journaling. I just dumped my journaling onto paper via shaped and color and texture instead of text.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Also, thanks again to everyone who has signed up. Please let me know if you have not been getting email updates. Thanks.