In May 2022 I worked with a group of artists here in Pittsburgh to mount two related shows exploring the experiences of motherhood. The artists included Sandra Bacchi, Sophia Cardillo, Naomi Chambers, Carrie Smith Libman, Michele Randall, Megan Shope, Alecia Dawn Young, and Stefanie Zito. Most of us met through the process of creating these exhibitions, and our places in along the path of motherhood range from the parent with an empty nest to the process of birth itself—Sophia delivered her second child around two weeks before hanging the shows and wore her tiny newborn during her artist talk!
The Most Possible Kind came from perspectives on parenting as children grow and gradually transition towards independence. We made a short walk-through video of this exhibition, if you’d like to hear more about it.
This show takes its title from a poem by Bradley Trumpfheller called “Reconstructions.” The poem is composed of vividly sketched details, and as you read them they build up a sense of a moment that’s charged with promise and possiblity. Off in the distance there’s just the quickest echo of a mother’s voice, maybe in the distance, maybe just a fleeting memory. I wanted to stand in that mother’s place for a second: what does she know, what does she remember, what does she hope for the “most possible kind?"
This was a particularly meaningful show for me since it gave me the chance to bring some work directly to the Duquesne University community, where I’ve taught for almost as long as I’ve been a parent. At this time my oldest is a college student himself. The experiences of teaching and parenting students at this age during the past few years has kind of put the “loco” in in loco parentis. The challenges that these students have had to face have been so unpredictable, and they are preparing to take on their roles in a world that’s changing dramatically. We’re all constantly trying to re-find our footing, trying to orient ourselves towards a horizon that shifts as soon as we begin to lock focus on it. All of that has been on my mind as I’ve been working on the Halophilic 3 series. There were three prints from that series in this show, presented banner-style on Ultrasuede fabric. I also managed to find a spot for the Small Animal Sort series, which is all about the process of finding names for the roles we want to take on in the world, and seeing how those roles began in the imaginative experiences of early childhood.
