Connection is the focus of this, the 7th week of the Mother-Daughter Way journey. My connection to my mother, Alice Steer Wilson, fifteen years after her death, is one of imagination and memory. I lead this part of the journey with a renewed sense of the relevance of the program mission, which is to open up the process of self-mothering the way you wish you could be mothered, or in the case of a difficult daughter, the way you wish you could open up that connection using the MOM … [Read more...]
January Thaw II: A Green Light on Your Possibility
Last week I wrote about the origin of The Mother-Daughter Way, and offered a glimpse of the power of the MOM Fix to shed light on, and reveal alternative endings to painful mother-daughter stories. I’m excited to do this pilot program with a group of interesting, thoughtful women. And I do the entire program right along with them. Yes, I've been doing this work for over fifteen years, and yes, I love the life I am living. But if I fail to cultivate my own self-mothering traits of mindfulness, … [Read more...]
MOM Fix III: M is for Mercy
Even when I was an angry teenager, long before my mother and I forged our way back to forgiveness of each other and ourselves, we shared a love of the colors of nature. I was grateful for the beauty of the roses my father grew in our garden, and when I picked a few and gave them to my mother, she expanded the gift by creating the painting above. Later, when I prepared to move across the country, she gave me the painting as a memento. The 3rd profound shift to lighten and reframe the … [Read more...]
MOM Fix II: O is for Openness
The open doors of her third floor studio inspired this black and white watercolor my mother painted to illustrate my grandmother's poem about aging and seclusion. When the three of us started working on The View in Winter, Alice planned to use her skill as a colorist to brighten up her mother's poems. I argued against the use of full color illustrations because I wanted the art to complement, not overpower, the verse. Alice agreed, reluctantly, to work in black and white, and later, she was … [Read more...]
The Mother-Daughter Way Unfolds . . .
I'm excited to share a work-in-progress, the Mother-Daughter Way, although I rarely do that. This work is highly collaborative, and I welcome your questions, comments and feedback. In the potential cover for the book, my mother sits before a blank canvas in a watercolor self-portrait, "Winter Work," (1994) done in her Merchantville studio. The image on the right is her oil portrait of me, "Jan in Blue," done in 1973 as I prepared to move across the county and start a new life as far away from … [Read more...]
Art Sale as Autumn’s Release
The summer of 2015 went by too quickly, as many summers seem to, but this one was remarkable in the level of excitement and discovery that stayed high all season. The last time I posted, I had yet to open the exhibition of Alice Steer Wilson's works at the Carroll Gallery. Since then, I have collated and sold a record number of card packs and prints. Next Friday we will host a closing sale and celebration of the works, and all the stories as well as old and new friends they have brought … [Read more...]
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...]
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...]
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...]
Malala: Standard-Bearer for Girls’ Rights to Education
This month of honoring women may be coming to a close, but it's been an opening for me in a way I never dreamed. As a writer who is given to privacy, revision, and possibly overworked revision, this blog accomplished what my mother said the shift to watercolors from oil paints did for her. I had to trust my instincts, post it, and let it go. Your responses have been awesome, and I will not crawl back under that rock any time soon. Thank you for reading, liking, and responding. So, yes, I'm … [Read more...]
