motherly love

{image above: Barnaba da Modena}

(images above and below: Pinaree Sanpitak)


At this time of year, when the Madonna and Child show up more often outside of their usual home inside Catholic and Orthodox churches, I've been thinking of motherly love (if you know Frank Zappa, you now have an irreverent tune running through your head) in emotional, but also physical ways. And, of course, my own body is swelling like a Louise Bourgeois sculpture. When you turn into a physical picture of fecundity, when you actually start looking like a seedpod set to burst, you start thinking about the elemental feminine form in new ways. There's an undeniably beautiful part of it, but also something alien and uncontrolled.

Thai artist Pinaree Sanpitak has built a whole career around elemental forms, most often the breast. She has this to say: "Although my works have changed over the last decade, I still consider them as part of the same concept about perceptions of one’s physical and spiritual being. I wanted all my senses to blossom: to give rise to all possibilities, and consequently learn more about oneself. I try to achieve this by examining and underlining the essence of the female being through the Self. The most important goal is to challenge the conscious and sub-conscious of not only the viewer but also my own."

I think I wrote about this in a blog entry of yore, but it occurred to me the last time I had a newborn that "Take eat, this is my body" is literal for a nursing mother. The whole conception of the female body and beauty takes a profound shift. There's a warmth and simplicity in the exchange that is conveyed well by this 1977 clip of Buffy St. Marie on Sesame Street (link discovered here). And-- again-- there's also a side that is less than romantic, a feeling sometimes that you're literally being consumed, physically, emotionally, personally. One of the great challenges of parenting is the relative lack of choice whether or not to give of yourself. The only other option is neglect, which alarms every mothering instinct and becomes a burning like fire in your bones, no matter how tired you are-- and keeps you pouring it out, even when it's a more psychological version of milk. I had no idea. But I'll take it. I'll take it. I'm all in.

P.S. I've linked to two images of nursing Madonnas that disappear a couple hours later. What gives? Here's hoping this one sticks.