The birth of 4 Squared
In order to continue working, women artists have not only had to resist the external attitude that their lives are not the stuff of art, but at the same time deal with the pain and guilt of being torn in two (R. Power, The Divided Heart).
Four Squared is an exhibition by four artist-mothers and their experiences of making art amongst the chaos of raising young children. The experience of being a mother is also the subject of their art – what the artists describe as the push & pull of motherhood, domesticity and creativity. It is work created on an emotional rollercoaster, while burning the midnight oil, with the use of favors from friends, with the constant awareness of dishes to be washed.
Unknowingly, each artist has contributed to negating the burning question posed by poet Alice Ostriker – why has motherhood been ruled out as a valid theme of art? (It) is, after all, Ostriker continues, an immersion in the real stuff of life…a privileged position from which to encounter both the smallest, most nuanced interactions of daily life, and the most profound questions about the nature of existence.
The artists in Four Squared give us a glimpse into the real stuff of life.
Hey Ashley:
The research Raymond and I were talking about is by Pascal Boyer, a cognitive anthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis. His web page is http://artsci.wustl.edu/~pboyer/PBoyerHomeSite/index.html
His papers on ritualistic behavior discuss the effects of having children on the incidence of intrusive fears about, e.g., dropping kids of balconies, stabbing them accidentally with a pairing knife, etc.
You get not only an explanation of these fears, but also something that links it together with religious rituals and OCD!!!! Beautiful.
A representative abstract is this:
Stereotypic, rigidly scripted behavior is found in cultural rituals, in children’s routines, in obsessive-compulsive disorder, in normal adults around certain stages of the life-cycle. We propose an explanation in terms of an evolved Precaution System geared to the detection of and reaction to inferred threats to fitness, distinct from systems for manifest danger. The Precaution system includes a repertoire of potential hazards as well as a repertoire of species-typical precautions. Impairment in the system’s feedback accounts for OCD rituals. Gradual calibration of this system occurs through childhood routines. Mimicry of this system’s natural input makes cultural rituals salient and compelling.
The page contains links to his papers. Rich material for artists, I would think. Great seeing you too!
Carl