Art

Sculpture: She’s a Mother on the Inside

/ Sarah K Reece / 5 Comments

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Mixed media sculpture: Pine, brass, silver, freshwater pearls, AB Swarovski crystals, bone colouredcotton, Noodler’s Tianamen ink, various glass beads.

Made in honor of my beautiful partner Rose, who with my miscarriage of Tamlorn recently, has now lost 7 babies unborn. As we have no living children yet, she is frequently overlooked on Mother’s Day and rarely considered to be a ‘real’ mother by friends or during events. Added to the cultural pressure not to tell anyone about early pregnancy and not to mourn such losses as ‘real’ children, she has grieved and suffered silently for most of her life.

The title is borrowed from the Whovian/Palmer phrase bigger on the inside, referring to the TARDIS and the human capacity. The doll mother closes completely and locks shut. Once opened, 7 stranded pearls tumble from her broken heart, red rich, precious, and painful. They must be untangled to fall neatly.

To close her again, you have to touch the strands, to tuck them back into her heart. You must interact with and acknowledge them, and handle them carefully, or she will be ruined.

I love Rose deeply. She is still in profound, compounded, silenced, complicated grief. It is my passion and my joy to use my art to bring a voice to a topic so silenced, and so show her as I see her: however childless she appears on the outside, she is, like me, a mother on the inside.

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I’m making a handmade art book

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I am part way through a hand made artist’s book about losing Tamlorn. This is the final project for a semester long class called Critical Visual Thinking. I’ve chosen a combination of sewing, watercolours, and bead embroidery for the pages. I have two more to finish then tomorrow I will start the process of binding it. It’s exquisitely beautiful and I’ve loved every painstaking hour I’ve spent on it. Here’s a little preview:

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Everything sings to me

/ Sarah K Reece / 1 Comment

I’m in the zone, powering through my mammoth workload with fierce joy. I’m currently hand sewing an art book about grieving unborn children.

I watched Mad Max 4 yesterday in 3D at the cinemas… I’m so broke but I think I’m going back to see it again. It was stunning. The cinematography, direction, visuals, and sound were superb… visual poetry with an impressive philosophy and psychology. I was enchanted. I felt something click in my head, one of my frameworks about life gently get the last piece needed. Something closed over and I exhaled with a sense of peace. The world makes sense. It’s not okay, it’s not all answered, I haven’t found the truth or understood every question, but a sense of total disconnection and bewilderment that has been with me all my life suddenly healed over.

I’m flying.

My midnight and my noonday are close enough to spark life between them. The sublime and the domestic burst into each other with abundance. I’ve bridged a gap between the internal and external.

It’s like I can run after spending my whole life dragging a ball and chain behind me. I feel so alive and so free. My mind is so clear. Everything sings to me, everything speaks to me. I turn the radio up loud and sing in the car when I’m driving. I can feel the touch on my skin when I think of my favourite scenes from Mad Max, but it’s not psychotic or deranged. The stars sing to me, my bones sing to me. The world is full of life and it makes sense to me. Everything speaks in its own language and I’m spinning with the whirl of stars, grasping life to me with passion. It’s not a mind puzzle solved in disconnection, it’s felt in the body, it’s experienced in the soul. I breathe and the world breathes into me, through me. I’m not disconnected any more, not set apart, not broken by the contradictions. I feel like I’ve swallowed the planet, my heart finally big enough.

There’s no glass. No railway tracks. No rules I can’t break, should I choose to. I am apart from it all, all the fences and the traps. I am a little bag of skin, sewn over dreams, painfully fragile, singing with life. I’ve drunk many bitter cups to taste this sweetness. I’ve loved and been broken by love. I’ve faced the things that hunted me in the night, made some peace with my ghosts.

My voice, my lovely anguished voice, she is transformed. She infuses with me something beautiful that is not voice, that is a language without words. The void is outside me, not within. The shadows are populated, my ignorance stretches before me like a vast unknown land full of terror and possibility. We are Sarah. I know my own name, I know who I am. I have seen through to the bones of life, I have seen the joke and I can’t help but laugh. Agony and beauty, spun together. The anguish is not gone. I am not safe. I am not safe and yet there is this freedom, this song in me. The world it screams and it sings and I can hear it all.

One happy artist

/ Sarah K Reece / 1 Comment

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Took this photo in the bathroom at college today when I realised I looked like a green haired Marge Simpson… I’ve been working on a lathe and other equipment where dangling hair could get me scalped, so I put my dreads up them covered them with this gorgeous yak wool beanie from Nepal. When I put my dreads right up on the top of my head like this, I’ve got quite a bit of height going on!

I’m into the last 3 weeks of this semester. I have 2 essays, 3 artworks, and 3 journals due. It’s packed in and needing my total attention. I’m flourishing. I’m hitting my stride and finally finding my feet. I’m also rapidly recovering from my sinus infection, which is fantastic. I was told, after the surgery, I’d still get them but likely get over them fast, (previously they went bacterial then crashed my immune system so I got everything else too) and that’s holding true so far… Fingers crossed it still works for me over winter.

Working hard and learning many new skills. Can’t wait to show you, I’ve got a handmade art book, a wooden doll, and a tactile rain stick in development. I’m so content to be developing as an artist. I’m home, I’m home, I’m home. I can be what I really am and still make a difference in the world, still be an ethical and responsible citizen, using art as a language to say the things I want to say, using it to keep me sane and keep me mad in ways that don’t destroy my life. Keep that spark alive.

I wanted to go out to the post card fund-raiser for NePal tonight after college but my mind and body were saying ‘home’. So home I came. I’ve cut the dead roses back, done some weeding in the soft wet soil, planted out a rose I gave to Rose for Mothers Day, put out the bins, and cleaned something pink off the car. (did someone throw a drink over it? No idea) Rose and I are cooking pasta and waffles for dinner together and then cleaning the kitchen.

There’s a purr of happy contentedness in my chest. Is this what learning your own rhythms feels like? Tuning into the language of body and brain? It’s the most wonderful thing. It feels like I’ve finally learned how to follow the steps of a dance I’ve been doing wrong all my life and now it just… Flows.

Broken and Loved

/ Sarah K Reece / 2 Comments

Precious, lovely Rose is going through a rough time. She’s been tangled in a bad depression since Tamlorn died. There’s some days that are better than others, but the bad days are very hard right now. If could, I’d sweep her up and squeeze all the darkness out of her, the deep pain, the dread, the despair, the exhaustion and fear that maybe life will never feel better again. It’s wonderful that I’m in a good place right now, because both of us being in misery is very hard. But it has its own pain for her too, a fear of holding me back, a sense of failing. Complicated grief, with deep sense of brokenness.

I can’t make it better, but I can make a space for her where she doesn’t need to hold up the sky or live up to expectations, or be worthy. Together, we can make our home a refuge.

Yesterday was a bad day. I wanted to give her some token she could carry with her, through all the dark hours. So I made this memory locket. I gave her one last year with little crystals in it to represent her family – her, and me, and 6 for the little babies who have died unborn. I broke it accidentally when trying to place a little charm in it that didn’t fit. So for her birthday this year, I replaced it with a new shiny one. I was going throw the old one away but her talk of brokenness made me see the possibilities in it. For those of you who aren’t familiar with memory lockets, they have a little window on both sides, giving them a front and reverse side. I used water colours and ink to create this little artwork, you can flip it back and forward in your hand to see each side.

She loved it. She doesn’t have to believe it. It doesn’t take away the pain. But it’s something. There’s a kind of peace there.

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Moving between worlds

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The days start pretty well, working from home.

I’m somewhere between hitting my stride, mad obsession, and betting kicked in the head by another sinus infection. Last week I worked all day every day on business and networks – which are growing at a phenomenal rate as all kinds of things are clicking into place about marketing, communication, and finding a language for what it is I do. Changing gears or taking time off is somewhere between very difficult and completely impossible. I had my first migraine in years the other day and had to stop everything and go lie down in a dark room. For me these have only ever been drug allergies… was it a food allergy? Driving home through incredibly bright afternoon light in the hills (if you haven’t experienced Australian evening light when the sky is clear, try driving with a industrial spotlight in your face)… or trying to stop the cascade of information in my head? I don’t know. If it happens again I’ll know more, but one incident is not a pattern.

I am drafting policy documents for the networks and not for profit. I don’t mean to be, but I can’t stop it. Things that never made sense to me are making sense, and in this clarity everything I’ve ever thought, read, or experienced, comes rushing into view… a new perspective. I’m finally learning a new language and everything is translating itself into and out of it. Art and mental health are sparking each other in a continuous loop in my mind. The tip of my index finger has now become permanently numb from writing.

I need to get college homework done. I have 3 artworks and 2 essays due soon, and work do do on 3 journals. It’s almost impossible to make time for it. But I will. Last night I set myself the task – no business or networking work at all until after 5pm today. At all. Even returning a phone call or an email. I don’t have the control to just do one thing, so it needs to be a closed door. Panic and frustration screamed inside me. So then I did whatever I had to until the screaming quieted. I set up my work table. I cleared away all network and business paraphinalia. I checked my do list and updated my post it notes so I wouldn’t forget anything important – and didn’t have to waste mental energy remembering it. I got out my papers and sewing machine and library books and notes and journal and all the inspiration and trappings of one of the art projects I need to work on. I could feel the screaming settle inside and my mind change focus, start to pick up the threads of this project with keenness and interest, start to knaw at the problems and muse about the possibilities. I went to bed with the art project brewing and my mind mollified, like taking a toy that needs washing off a child and giving them a different, but still interesting toy to investigate instead.

Today I’m up. I’ve slept, I’m rested. My sinuses are horrible but I still have half a box of tissues so I don’t need to go anywhere. The lounge is set for art. I’ve filled two buckets with weeds and rose trimmings from the garden – starting by getting my hands in soil. I have water to drink and Radiohead playing. This is how I cross the threshold and shift my focus – I change the environment. I’ve always known this but not known what I was doing. The artists in my system have turned up, like wolves sniffing the air. Something for them. The papers and inks call to my hands. A language of their own.

Out in the yard, I’ve set the sprinklers as the garden was dry. It’s easy to miss that during the cold months, but here in South Australia just because it’s cold doesn’t mean rain has fallen. You need to walk in the garden to notice all the little signs of stress in the plants that ask for water. And I think to myself – that’s another language, of a kind. All these different languages the world speaks. All these different worlds, nested alongside each other. And here’s me, changing shape, colour, name, and mother tongue. Figuring out how to open the doors and cross the thresholds and move between the worlds.

In the grey light, the water drops hang silver on the plants. The garden is strewn with pearls.

Exuberance: passion, mania, and self hypnosis

/ Sarah K Reece / 3 Comments

Things are still wild here. Poor lovely Rose was up half the night vomiting bile. We think she might have food poisoning, and we’re going off to see her doctor soon. Around 4am she finally stopped long enough to keep an anti-emetic down, thankfully, and has only vomited a couple of times this morning.

I’m sleep deprived but still good. There’s been a fair bit of plans going astray and wheels falling off and last minute shocks lately, but after the inital feeling awful and hopeless I seem to be bouncing back incredibly quickly. My mind is still clear, and still going a million miles an hour. I actually have a callous on my fingers and a permanent numb patch from writing so much lately. I can barely keep up, ideas are flowing through me like a constant sleet of inspiration. I’m having to work thoughtfully to find ways to calm my mind enough to focus on driving – I’m constantly having to pull over to write things down – and sleeping. Last night I was writing after waking up with Rose sick – she went back to sleep but my brain woke up and began to spit an entire theoretical framework for mental health service provision at me. I wrote and then put the pen down and turned off the light and after 10 minutes gave up and turned the light back on to quickly capture the next few ideas spilling into my brain, then turning it off again. I did that for about an hour as the pace slowed down. Finally there was only a trickle, and then a pause. I had the sense that in that pause I could tip the balance – in one direction I would go back into intense idea generation. In the other, I could close the valve gently and let all the ideas spin and burn safely in my subconscious. I gently learned in the direction of the closed valve and instructed my mind “No more for now, we must sleep and rest, let all the ideas keep going in my subconscious, but do not allow any more to come up into consciousness”. I also used an energy visualisation. I saw and felt my energy as light and buzzing and whirling, currently in my brain. I gently moved it down from my brain, into my body. From there, I moved it out of my body, into the room, changing from a whirling ball and into a peaceful, illuminating soft light, the gentle touch of awareness. I immediately felt my mind and body settle and calm. I felt a sense of connection with my surroundings, a kind of mindfulness that was highly aware without being alert. A kind of resting state that was still aware – possibly the same state hypnotists help people access. And then sleep came deeply and peacefully and I slept in through the morning to catch up.

Today it’s back. I cannot keep up with the ideas. Inspiration is everywhere. There are connections in everything. Profound realisations happen every hour. I’m constantly writing. I’m a prolific writer and blogger anyway, but I’ve never experienced this level of output before. It’s phenomenal. It’s still – to use Kay Redfield Jamison’s delineations in her book Exuberance: The Passion for Life in the territory of Exuberance rather than mania, but it’s pretty mind blowing. A short quote that sums a lot up from this fantastic book:

If exuberance is the champaign of life, then mania is its’ crack cocaine.

I have astonishing resilience at the moment – there have been some major setbacks this month and they still impact me and knock me over – but I bounce back like I never have before, within hours, strong and calm and ready to deal with it. My fibro is lesser than it’s been in many years – in fact I don’t think I’ve been this physically well since I was about 9 years old. It might not last, but it doesn’t have to. I’ll use the time I have.

Everything I’m learning about theory and history in my Visual Arts Degree is having profound implications for my mental health work. I’m learning more about the history of psychiatry and the developments of the science/humanity split in our disciplines than I ever did in my time trying to do my psychology degree. It’s so pertinent and explains so much about our current models, how we’ve developed them, the context we were responding to, and the losses that have happened along the way. I feel absolutely vindicated in my school time stress at being required to choose a stream when actually I love both science and humanities. They have so much to offer each other and so much to learn from each other, especially in a field like mental health that needs input from both to function – the rigor and research metholodoly of the sciences, their morally neutral assessments of ‘madness’ and hope for restoring health, and the human skills of connection, relationship, rapport, communication, and bringing hope. For the first time I firmly believe that I have made the right call to train in the arts while working in mental health. I am learning unique skills and insights that are essential to my work in mental health – which is so surprising and unexpected! I do not want to be a psychologist or a counsellor or a psychiatrist or a social worker – not because I do not value those disciplines but because that is not how I want to practice. I want to be a peer, a communicator, a community hub person that is friends with people and helps to connect them with the resources they need. I want to collaborate with the mental health disciplines and form alliances with them and work along side them, but as who I am now and the roles I naturally play best – artist, entrepreneur, activist. We need people like me in this field, we just hadn’t realised it before. So I will work as a freelancer and build the role around me and my skills – just as many others have in the past. We will bring new voices to the conversation and champion inclusion, community, and hope.

And I will do more figuring out how manage this exuberance, to shepherd it wisely, and to calm my brain and sleep.

Postcards for nePal Fundraiser

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Rose and I spent a peaceful evening last night creating these post card sized artworks for a fund raising event. Event details are on Facebook here. If you’re local please come along!

Fundraising! All funds raised on the day will go to charities for Nepal.

We are having a sale of donated postcard sized art works from many people, children to novice scribblers to talented beginners to emerging and established artists. They will be on display and available for purchase at various prices. Artworks of the established artist contributors will be auctioned on the day, along with some fantastic other donations from generous contributors including:

  • A Magnum of shiraz from D’Arenberg, valued at $130, signed on the label by the winemaker, Chester Osborne
  • Local wholefoods shops hamper to be auctioned, approximate value $50
  • Jurlique giftpack
  • a ‘high tea’ voucher donated by Fleurieu Pantry value $60.00
  •  A ‘couples’ coffee gift pack from 1645 including a coffee perculator, espresso cups and coffee valued at $100.00
  • A $100.00 voucher for Snowy’s outdoor shop
  • $60.00 worth of organic compost by SA Compost

There will be music and a cup of Chai to sip on and donated platters from local businesses as you browse the artworks. All money will be donated to charities assisting in the aftermath of the Nepalese Earthquake.

So come along on THURSDAY 21st MAY from 4.00pm until 6.30pm to the CWA hall, corner Margaret Street and Witton Road, Port Noarlunga 5167 and donate a small amount – for a postcard or three, or a large amount for an Auction item. Gold coin donation for entry.

Flyer for sharing is here. Any questions, contact Dene via dene.s@bigpond.com

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Pain and art

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Excerpt from my Photography Journal for College, 2014. Topic set for the class “Self Portrait – Reflections – Identity”

It’s not about ‘managing’ pain. How do you eat pain? Do you drink it? Or breathe it? Does it stay locked in your body, in muscles like rocks that strain to armour you against the world? In a stomach of snakes writhing, in eyes that are dry and blink too much? Do you find some way to digest it? Grind it down into small pieces with poetry, wash it out with tears? Do you hold onto it, storing each memory, like wine, ink on skin with tattoos? If you are suffering unbearably you had better find a way. All of us will one day need a way to bear unbearable pain. All of us will need ways to grieve, to be emptied, to be changed, to be burned to ashes, and to live.

***

I use the metaphor of fire for pain, a lot. I wonder if I can reflect flame onto my skin? Or into water? The dead leaves in the pool work well as a metaphor. Loss, autumn, winter, death. Rotting down.

There is an ocean of pain in me
Some days the tides
Are high and I drown –
But I do not drown. 

***

When I’m sick my world becomes:

  • Bed
  • Bath
  • Armchair
  • Computer
  • Toilet
  • Fridge

What’s the point?
What am I saying?
What questions am I asking?
What am I showing that hasn’t been seen before?
What am I exploring that I’ve never shown?

I talk about pain and shame but I don’t show photos of my sink full of dishes.
It doesn’t seem like enough to just show the illness. Why? Why do that? It will make people uncomfortable. Feels like self pity. I want to – show something people don’t usually get to see. Tell a side of the story that is about more than loss. What don’t we tell about?

  • Transcendence
  • Spirituality
  • Rage
  • Hope

No one sees me paint in the bath when my pain is bad but I’m desperate to create. There’s something there – raw – an energy – will to overcome.

People think sick people’s lives are boring and worthless. We are useless, lazy or objects of pity. We are defined by our conditions. We are forced to be naked in public – wearing our private personas in the public arena without the protection of a job to use when answering the question “So, what do you do?”. Can I answer that question in a zine in honest, unexpected ways?

So, what am I making for this zine? I want to photograph my soul. I’m crazy.

Identity and art

/ Sarah K Reece / 1 Comment

Excerpt from my Photography Journal for College, 2014. Topic set for the class “Self Portrait – Reflections – Identity”

Tutor G in first class – asking us who we are and what represents us. Asks me if I am my dreads. I’m startled by the idea. It seems frighteningly reductionistic. Like seeing me as my gender/skin colour/height/taste in coffee.

I am not these things. Maybe self identity is as much about being able to be seen as something more than a collection of stereotypes and assumptions – the ‘headline grab’ of a person’s life:

“Nothern Suburbs Woman”
“Prostitute”
“Avid Gardener”
“Psychiatrist”
“Father of Three”

Are we not more than these things? More than our job, our body, our family, our disabilities, our losses, our skills, our loves? Is there not something beneath and beyond things? Some capacity for growth and change, some sense of self that can be authentically expressed or violated?

Who would you be
If I took from you
Blue sky
Unscarred skin
the hope of food
What would look back at me
From your cage?

How do you calculate self?
I am not a list of my skills and tastes and interests and fears and qualities and attributes. Do not my masks tell you ask much about me as my face? Do my lies not reveal as much as my truths? Do my fears not tell you as much as my loves? Am I not as defined by what I am not as what I am?

Tutor S says we are a synthesis of these things, that in the glue that binds them we find self.

I think we are more than the sum of our parts, and every time we forget this or fail to see it in others we do a violence.

Reductionism.
Loss. To be consumed – by fear, pain, sickness, grief. To be forged. To not rise above, or avoid, but pass through. Into the shadow. Into terror and anguish.

“I think” she says, “In one way or another, the topic of identity will be your life’s work.”

“I know,” I sigh, “All my works are self portraits, no matter what they look like. I’ve done my best to come to terms with that, it’s that or stop creating.”

“Me too,” she says.

Life and art

/ Sarah K Reece / 2 Comments

Excerpt from my Photography Journal for College, 2014. Topic set for the class “Self Portrait – Reflections – Identity”

Is it that I show you the world, or is it that I show you my world?

I think of my wrist poem series. Something I’m ashamed of because it so publicly displays my brokenness. And yet something I wear publicly because I need to display it.

My blog, which is so often about tearing down the image that is being formed of me. Tearing away another layer. Being more vulnerable. I can’t bear to be suffocated by my own ‘public image’.

Walking away from class, having talked about the DID, feeling myself sullen and afraid and angry. The shying away from (their) curiosity. Don’t see me as my ‘identity disorder’. Don’t see me as my pain. Don’t see me as my successes. You don’t see me. (And I don’t see you) Walking in the twilight and a girl smiles at me as we pass each other crossing the road. And suddenly I’m happy again, the spell is broken, I’ve come up out of the dungeon into the autumn air and the world is beautiful and velvet with buses and my mind is full of thoughts and I think of the aspect of my queer identity and how I’ve not even touched on that yet, yet this beautiful girl with dark hair and the lovely generous smile has woken my heart and reminded me of joy. Who am I? I am a student, sitting on the red steps of the Tafe, watching a woman lift a stone from her shoe as night falls and the buses go home, because I have to write these thoughts, because I feel alive again, because she gave me a smile and made my heart glad, because I talked about soul with my tutor and she gave me back my identity as an artist.

Life doesn’t get in the way of making art,
Life is the subject of art.
If pain stops me from painting, then write about pain.
If sickness stops me from sculpting, then document it with photographs.

Go into the places of fear and vulnerability. The things I’m reluctant to explore or display. They’re not distractions, they’re the subject.

The art that I make because I must, to keep myself alive is ‘real art’. The photos I take to document the hard times, the ink on my wrist that stops me from slashing it, the poems in my journals. Even when no one else sees them. They are art. They are not a distraction from the ‘real’ art.

This is art too, this place of rawness, intensity, need. The place I’ve learned to shield and conceal. Does anyone write what they really think in these journals?
What an idea.

It starts with this: put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remind yourself why it isn’t in the middle of the room. Life isn’t a support system for art. It’s the other way around.” ~ Stephen King, On Writing.

Photomontages – illness & identity

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Last year I did a class of Photography where we learned the basics of a darkroom, and made photograms, photomontages, acetate negatives, handmade negatives, and zines. The topic chosen for us to explore in the art was ‘identity’ which I wrestled with a lot at the time and found that I slowed down on writing this blog while I was feeling so exposed. I shared that struggle in Choices and Soul. I’ve dug the journal out this week and thought I’d share my work. Here are three photomontages I created about the intersection of disability/chronic illness and identity.

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Not Really One Thing or the Other

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Fire in My Flesh

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Dreaming of Spring

Silver tree sculpture

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I’m working on a sculpture for college at the moment. It’s not finished yet but you can see the bones of it: a weeping tree with silver leaves. It’s designed to be displayed outdoors, the leaves move in the wind or rain. They are cut from 0.3mm aluminium, the tree itself is mild steel mig welded together. The welding is fantastic, I’ve wanted to learn it for so long. I’m looking forward to seeing it finished in my yard, the leaves should flash in the sun and weep in the rain.

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Ink Painting: Lantern

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Painted this the other day. I’m 9 weeks pregnant today. I can’t give you any updates about what stage of growth the baby is because all we know is they’re badly behind. The apps and books and reminders have rather lost their joy.

Rose and I play board games. We book in time with friends. We watch ER. We cook and prepare lunches for each other. We sing to the baby. We touch base over text throughout the day, checking in, “still pregnant”, trying to ease the breathless fear. We lie in bed and plan what we’ll do if this one dies, how soon to start trying again, how we’ll handle news that they are alive but catastrophically disabled, we cry about how we don’t just want any baby, we want this baby, we’re in love with them.

We pack the dishwasher and water the garden. Forget to buy cat food and go back for it. I get anxious texts if I’m longer than a minute in the toilet. Sleeping in one day I wake to missed calls and frantic worries that I’m bleeding out in my sleep. Friends answer the phone with a panicked tone. We’re all waiting for disaster.

I book in our scan for next Monday, the woman on the phone is curt and unhelpful. So you’re only 6 weeks pregnant? No, I snap back, the baby is only 6 weeks developed. Oh yeah she says, reading the form more closely. She hangs up without telling where to come for the scan and I have to call her back for instructions.

I arrange bills in order of due date and put them on the fridge.

For 5 hours one day I firmly believe the baby will be fine. I sing around the house.

Rose drives to work and sits weeping in the car park. There’s nightmares and flashbacks, we talk softly of the other times, other losses. I promise I’ll tell her the truth, even at work. She mostly believes me.

I sit in class, feeling pain and dampness, half convinced I’m miscarrying but desperate not to find out. I sit solidly at my desk, head down, working, until the end of class. I screw up my courage and go to the bathroom. False alarm.

Our friend who had visited over the weekend to celebrate the first scan goes home again yesterday. The house feels oddly empty.

The cat sleeps on me all night, snuggled as close as she can get. I’m constantly surprised by these little reminders that I am still pregnant, despite everything that’s going on.

Food aversions are in full force. I can’t bear salad or meat anymore. I live on cooked vegetables and fruit. Licorice settles my gut.

I’m still writing to my little one, sometimes as if they’re alive, sometimes as if I’ve already lost them. I feel dazed. Rose and I spend whole evenings sitting close, holding hands, trying to ease the sense of distance and bewilderment. We’re still here, there’s still love here. We hold on.

It’s not pretty

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Feeling sick.
Feeling angry.
Inks and poetry are my punching a wall. And music
Music lets me breathe
Especially Trent.

She shines in a world full of ugliness
She matters when everything is meaningless.
(this is the first day of my last days)

It’s not pretty, it’s life.

Still no news if the baby will live or die.

The Wishing Tree

/ Sarah K Reece / 4 Comments

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I’m 6 weeks pregnant today, and not feeling right, which is making me anxious. I went to see this exhibition yesterday, part of it was a wishing tree. We were asked to write a wish and tie it to the tree. I’ve written please let the baby live.

Welding and pregnant

/ Sarah K Reece / 1 Comment

I’m 5 weeks pregnant today! The little one is about the size of a sweet pea (5mm) and has a heart beat. At the moment pregnancy is like a slightly rough day with fibro, only a lot more exciting.

Today was sculpture class, which makes me feel so contented and at home. I learned to weld! We’re starting with brazing welding with the oxy-acetylene torch. I’m glad I’m pregnant in this class instead of painting – the fumes in painting can be a big issue as well as skin absorption. I made this little critter for my garden:

2015-02-18 15.29.56-22015-02-18 11.40.37-1It was wonderful. I’m so glad I’m still doing this degree. I have no idea how it’s all going to work out, but to spend time with other artists in a studio learning new skills makes my heart happy. And we have the best tutors in this class. Something good will come of it. Tonight and tomorrow are HVNSA and DI meets, something also very exciting and at times anxiety producing. Hoping we create something good out of that too. 🙂

I’m back at college

/ Sarah K Reece / 2 Comments

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Continuing my marathon part time study in the bachelor of visual arts. This semester I’m doing Art history, another concept development class (hoping I hate this one less than the previous), and a sculpture class teaching is construction basics in metal and wood. I’m beyond excited by the sculpture class. We’re going to learn to weld! I’m deeply jealous of the other students who are also doing figure sculpture tomorrow, but I know I’ll try and push myself past my limits so I’m staying put with my timetable. I’m thrilled to be back and so tired I feel like I’m going to faint. I’ve picked up a head cold and I’m still adjusting to the early morning starts.

Rose has started her work again this week and I’m thriving on the extra structure and having an empty house regularly to get some work done. Hoping to nail regular cleaning, eating, and exercise routines. Doing okay with the first two but not so great with the third.

In concept class we were asked to do something with a piece of paper that expressed the concept of ‘essense’. I made this little branch from paper and leaves.

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Cat themed cupcakes

/ Sarah K Reece / 2 Comments

 

We baked!! I really, really wanted to make a cake for my awesome cat-obsessed friend. I asked her what she wanted and she threw me a little by asking for either a light chocolate cake or a pavlova (I’m kinda getting a reputation for my pavs :P)… so I decided to do both! Chocolate sponge cupcakes with meringue icing. People usually ask me for super rich desserts so I didn’t actually have a favourite light chocolate cake recipe and was a little nervous about this because I’ve also never tried making meringue icing before although I’ve long wanted to… and I only had the night before/morning of the lunch to prepare, which is not a lot of time for things to go wrong.

 

They didn’t go wrong. 😀 Baked a bunch of chocolate cupcakes:image

 

Sat in front of the air conditioner (it’s very hot here at the moment) and Rose and I sculpted these cat ‘toppers’ from fondant, hand painted them with food colouring and brushed them with edible gold dust. Whee!

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Next I cut holes in each and filled them with a tsp of nutella. Mmmmm.

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I whipped up some meringue icing, made by boiling sugar to soft boil stage then pouring it slowly into whipped egg whites. It’s like marshmallow fluff. Pipes perfectly.image

 

And assemble! Gorgeous!image

 

Here’s the collection all together. 😀 I hate cakes that look pretty but taste shabby. These were perfect. So pleased!image

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We had a really nice party. 🙂