Janice Wilson Stridick

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Thrilled to unveil Alice’s Cape May, the part represents the whole . . . .

April 22, 2015 by Janice Wilson Stridick

Thrilled to unveil Alice’s Cape May, the part represents the whole . . . .

Fifteen years ago, Saturday, my mother began painting a large oil portrait of me. That may sound unremarkable, since she was a painter and I am her daughter, but it was highly charged for two reasons: I was busy, healthy, and I hate to sit for portraits. She was weak, breathless, dying of breast cancer, and she had never been satisfied with any of the previous portraits she’d attempted of me. In her home, and my sibling’s homes, there were plenty of portraits of the rest of the family. Her … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Alice Steer Wilson, Artist, Breast Cancer Survival, Cape May NJ, Family Caregivers, Hoarding or Curating, Memoir, Mothers and Daughters, Poetry, Women and Creativity, Women's Stories, Women's Studies, Women's Wisdom

Loving, Losing, Letting Go

April 5, 2015 by Janice Wilson Stridick

Loving, Losing, Letting Go

Yesterday, I helped out as my friend Sandy Sampson conducted an estate sale to empty her parent's home. I had to see how she did it. Sandy is an awesome daughter who provided much family caregiving over the past decade. Her father, Harry Trigg, died in April 2009, and her mother, Marion Jane Bold Trigg, passed away four months ago, on Christmas Eve. Sandy set her mind and heart to the difficult task of clearing out her family's lifetime of collections, and to do so with the willing … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, Family Caregivers, Hoarding or Curating, Memoir, Mothers and Daughters, Peace, Poetry, Publishing, Sisters, Women and Creativity, Women's Stories, Women's Wisdom, Writing

The Promise of Mothers and Daughters

March 31, 2015 by Janice Wilson Stridick

The Promise of Mothers and Daughters

...this is how you sweep a corner; this is how you sweep a whole house; this is how you sweep a yard; this is how you smile to someone you don't like too much ...   Jamaica Kinkaid, "Girl" Will you be there?  ...  Can you hear the truth?    Tori Amos, "Promise"   It's been a lovely meditation for me to sit down and write daily tributes for Women's History Month. Now, on the last day, I'm returning to the relationship with the most elemental power­: the Mother-Daughter bond. So … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Alice Steer Wilson, Artist, Blog, Jamaica Kincaid, Memoir, Mothers and Daughters, Poetry, Tori Amos, Women and Creativity, Women's History Month, Women's Stories, Women's Studies, Women's Wisdom, Writing

Natasha Trethewey and the Practice of Poetry

March 26, 2015 by Janice Wilson Stridick

Natasha Trethewey and the Practice of Poetry

    "I was asleep while you were dying . . . " from "Myth", in Native Guard, Pulitzer Prize 2007 ... about her mother, Gwendolyn Ann Turnbough   "...you will find the scaffolding of form to bear that weight– for yourself and for your mother." Inscription to me, on Thrall, August 2012, at Bread Loaf   Most daughters want to make our mother's proud, and I imagine Natasha Trethewey is no different. Except, her mother died before Natasha finished … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Artist, Blog, Poetry, Women and Creativity, Women's History Month, Women's Stories, Women's Studies, Women's Wisdom, Writing

Terry Tempest Williams and the Legacy of Mother, Earth, Spirit

March 25, 2015 by Janice Wilson Stridick

Terry Tempest Williams and the Legacy of Mother, Earth, Spirit

It's late on the 25th day of Women's History Month, and from amongst the crowd of worthy women and organizations on lists I wrote as I contemplated a month of daily tributes, I'm choosing Terry Tempest Williams. Reading her memoir, Refuge, in 1993, inspired me on so many levels. In luminous prose, she wrote of her mother's slow death from breast cancer, the loss of habitat of the birds of the Great Salt Lake, and the dark legacy of patriarchy and nuclear testing. Almost twenty years later, as … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Alice Steer Wilson, Artist, Blog, Poetry, Women and Creativity, Women's History Month, Women's Stories, Women's Studies, Women's Wisdom, Writing

Virginia Woolf and My First Wave

March 22, 2015 by Janice Wilson Stridick

Virginia Woolf and My First Wave

  I can't say for certain when I discovered Virginia Stephen Woolf (1882-1941). Sometime during my teens I read her essay, The Waves, and felt relief as the stream of my own consciousness was echoed on the pages I was reading. I am not a Virginia Woolf scholar, and I don't own any fancy versions or first editions, but the well-worn paperbacks on my bookshelf never fail to bring me pleasure and renew that original sense of relief, validation, excitement, and energy that comes from … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, Mothers and Daughters, Poetry, Publishing, Women and Creativity, Women's History Month, Women's Stories, Women's Studies, Women's Wisdom, Writing

A Sister I Never Met

March 16, 2015 by Janice Wilson Stridick

A Sister I Never Met

    Bernadette Marie Stridick (6/25/1951 - 10/10/1976) For the sixteenth day of Women's History Month, I'm remembering a woman I never met, but have come to love as a sister. I imagine she would have been a good friend and sister-in-law, had she lived long enough to celebrate my wedding to her brother. In October 1989, soon after I began dating Paul, he dropped out for a couple of days. When we reconnected, he told me that the anniversary of the day his sister had … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, Memoir, Mothers and Daughters, Needlepoint, Poetry, Sisters, Women and Creativity, Women's History Month, Women's Stories, Women's Studies, Women's Wisdom, Writing

Women’s Stories Count and VIDA Keeps Track . . .

March 14, 2015 by Janice Wilson Stridick

Women’s Stories Count and VIDA Keeps Track . . .

For women to make history, we must tell our stories and listen to each other. We must name names. We must count. When I promised my mother that I would curate her art and archives, neither of us realized how difficult it would be. I counted the paintings in her studio and the family collection, mailed a request for information to her collectors, and compiled a database of 1,200 works, out of an estimated 2,000 she created during her lifetime. I selected a representative 200 color plates … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Alice Steer Wilson, Artist, Blog, Memoir, Mothers and Daughters, Poetry, Publishing, Women and Creativity, Women's History Month, Women's Stories, Women's Studies, Women's Wisdom, Writing

Pork Cake or Persimmon: Women’s Stories Evolve

March 13, 2015 by Janice Wilson Stridick

Pork Cake or Persimmon: Women’s Stories Evolve

                      I've always found groups of women produce fascinating stories and brilliant solutions. Whenever I am in a transition, there are women around me in the same boat. We bond, magnetically ­–like Spanky and Our Gang– and the tide pulls us forth. There was an early writing group I dubbed Ladies of the Lake (LOL); then another, Great Ones (GO); I convened a series of Goddess Brunches to … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Alice Steer Wilson, Blog, Food, Memoir, Mother's Burial, Mothers and Daughters, Persimmon Cake, Poetry, Publishing, Women and Creativity, Women's History Month, Women's Stories, Women's Studies, Women's Wisdom, Writing

A Woman’s Century of Wisdom: Margery Binkerd Wells Steer

March 12, 2015 by Janice Wilson Stridick

A Woman’s Century of Wisdom: Margery Binkerd Wells Steer

                For the twelfth day of Women's History Month, I honor my maternal grandmother, Margery Binkerd Wells Steer. She was born on a farm in New Canaan Connecticut, August 29th, 1899. She died at her daughter's home in Merchantville, New Jersey on April 10, 1992. In her 92 years, she was fond of remarking how much change she had witnessed and participated in. She came of age as women won the right to vote. She … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Alice Steer Wilson, Artist, Blog, Memoir, Mothers and Daughters, Poetry, Publishing, Women and Creativity, Women's History Month, Women's Stories, Women's Studies, Women's Wisdom, Writing

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