Written by Rebekah Mei

This month, the Level Ground Collective is reflecting on and sharing art related to the theme of Cycle. Make sure you’re following us on Instagram to see more work from Collective artists.

For quite some time I have identified with my uterus’s intermittent bleeding. But, as with all things that I hold as identities, I must learn to hold it lightly because we are more than just one thing. Someday I will stop getting my period. My child will be grown, and I will be older and wiser. I’ve honored the fact that my menstrual cycle has governed and marked the time and experiences I’ve lived through, but I wonder, what will happen when that cycle is gone? 

Maiden

I was 11 years old when I got my first period. It was weird. Things were weird. Suddenly, my life was governed by a predictable timetable of unpredictable behavior, and since that first period, my menstrual cycle has shaped much of my experience in life. 

In my 20s I realized the intense waves of anxiety and depression I was going through fell in sync with my menstrual cycle and discovered I have something called Premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD). I tried to manage it with a variety of methods, but finally fell into a steady rhythm when my PMDD met Prozac.   

They got along fine for a while but then at 30 years old my period didn’t come. I was pregnant, and it was weird. Things were weird. 

During pregnancy, I lost. I lost my mind, my body, and my tether to who I was as an individual. I lost my sense of self. Not only in my changing body, hormones, and ability to eat and drink whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, but also in my ability to project parts of who I am through my clothing choices. 

Clothing was a big part of my “Maiden” stage of life. The way things fit, felt, looked, all of this mattered immensely to me. In retrospect, it wasn’t really the clothing that bothered me, it was my body. The new and unfamiliar way it fit, felt, and looked. 

Then, with labor came a transformative moment. While powerful is not honestly how I would describe my experience navigating this shift in my identity, I felt an awareness of my body and my power in a new way.

Mother

As a mother, It frequently feels like the cycles that now govern my life are no longer my own. There is a toddler with cycles I now attune to. 

My days go something like this: 

Wake up, change diaper, make breakfast, make coffee, sweep, repeat. Snack, clean, play, nap, repeat.
Wash clothing, diapers, masks, dishes, baby, and self, repeat.
Say please!  Say thank you! Point to your: nose, ear, eye, Repeat. 
Wash hands, wash hands, wash hands, repeat. 

The repetition can be mind-numbing and illuminating. There is nothing like living with a toddler that makes one realize the value of routine. It was this that helped me realize I needed to find a new cycle for myself to thrive in, so In January of 2021 I started something big: a self-designed and directed education through an at-home MFA program.

The thing is school is expensive, and MFA programs in art are not geared toward a full-time caregiver in the middle of a pandemic. The absolute beauty in designing this myself is I get to be intentional about the subjects I dive into, the authors I read, and the artists I study and learn from.

Caring for my toddler takes a lot of energy, patience, wisdom, and chutzpah, and from this place I began to think about all that I’ve already learned since pushing a tiny skull between my pelvic bones through sheer grit and terror in my own bed, much like the matriarchs we all come from. 

I realized the responsibilities of taking care of a toddler mean I won’t have much time available to sit quietly and read, so I sought out as much documentary, podcast and audiobook content for my program as I could find. 

I have consistently returned to this idea of what it means to be a caretaker and how that is connected to my art, so I decided to title my program MFA in Matriarchal Art Practice. What is Matriarchal Art? I’m not entirely sure yet, but I’m hoping to discover it. I can see the heft and weight and strength in it, but I can’t quite see the edges. 

And yet, I find myself in a constantly defensive stance towards my choice to pursue this self-directed MFA. My inner critic tells me I’m being self-indulgent, wasting my time, and tricking myself into thinking that art about the experience and realities of mothering can be “real art.”

While I may, at times, think these thoughts come from within, I know that they are all judgements borne of society.  A part of the narrative that labels mothering or care-taking as a “less than” role that has been perpetuated over the years. I’m unlearning this thought cycle, and learning to let go of expecting clarity to come easy.

Wise Woman

Traditionally speaking, a Wise Woman is someone in their post-menopausal phase of life. 

Wise Women are also associated with the season of fall, where the days grow shorter, nights grow longer and there is much drinking of warm tea while leaves crunch underfoot. The fruits of summer are gone but there is an abundant autumn harvest. The beauty of the changing natural world permeates all. I entered the world at the end of October,  so I may be just slightly biased towards appreciation for this season.

Part of the wisdom of  Wise Women is looking to those that came before and sharing with those that are yet to come.

I was recently teaching a lesson on contour line drawing to a class of 3rd graders over Zoom. I taught them about how important it is for artists to practice stripping subject matter of labels, telling these sweet and fresh faced 8-year-olds that “categorizing might make your life seem easier, but we’re far too interesting as individuals to be simplified into symbols.”

The advice I gave my students is applicable to me, too. I need to give myself space to breathe and experiment in my full individuality, regardless of the categories I may or may not fall into. Mother. Artist. Teacher. Bisexual. Middle Child. All of these labels function to categorize and simplify my existence in a world that is infinitely complex, and all the more beautiful for its complexity.

It’s time I see myself each day as I am. Not simply the archetypes of who I might be. I am, and can be, all of these things together. 

Crone

A storybook image of an old harried witch often comes to mind upon hearing the word “Crone.” The value of a woman’s aged wisdom has historically been feared and demonized by society at large. Which is, of course, why we see such caricatures of what it is to be an “old lady.” 

I’d like to turn to the history of one such mother who left her mark on the art world. My own ancestral crone, Käthe Kollwitz.

The works of Käthe Kollwitz have been a mainstay in my mental file folder of inspirational artists. 

Her prints evoke the most poignant cries for revolution from the working class of Germany in the years leading up to, and during, both of the World Wars. Her unflinching portrayal of death, starvation, pain, and sorrow in the face of a brutal power structure carries as much significance today as it did at the time these prints were published and distributed. Her commitment to creating work outside of the bourgeois art world — a commitment made manifest by her dedication to ensuring her prints could be obtained by the masses — is inspiring. 

Kollwitz, a mother herself, asked her young son to pose with her for a print she was working on. The print was meant to depict the pain of a mother holding a dead child. Years later, this same son was killed only days after entering WWI as a soldier.  

I’ve spent much of the last few months reading journal entries and letters written by Kollwitz, as well as studying her prints. There is a raw authenticity that she did not shy away from sharing. Already an established artist at this time, she could have chosen to not include her experiences as mother into her public role as artist, but she didn’t. She put forth heartbreakingly honest portrayals of mothers with dead children. Not a common subject matter for the fine art world, and certainly not a subject appreciated by the Third Reich. Hitler observed Kollwitz’s popularity among the people, and attempted to reconstitute her prints that decried the war into propaganda for his regime. 

I can’t imagine the anguish that this must have had on Kollwitz. A woman who had given her life to creating work to call out the evils of brutality. I wonder if this heartbreak didn’t feel too far from the death of her own son, lost fighting in a war fueled by hate.

Death is unavoidable, but the evidence of our existence stays behind. In the case of Käthe Kollwitz, we were left with a legacy of a revolutionary mother, and for that, I am forever grateful.

Repeat

In my more pessimistic moments — often during the Luteal stage of my menstrual cycle — I come back to the idea that we are all repeating the same patterns over and over just as other humans have been repeating patterns of their ancestors for all of history. This leaves me feeling frustrated and deflated. I lose interest in viewing myself in any type of individualized complexity. I lose a sense of my capability for taking unpredictable, and often necessary, action. 

But then the cycle turns. My progesterone drops and estrogen rises. I see the gleam of the sun hitting the buildings in view from my window in a way I’ve never noticed before, and once again am feeling optimistic. My toddler can now climb to literal new heights.  My awareness of danger slowly rising along with his capacity for reaching sharp objects he couldn’t get to before. The pattern shifts ever so slightly that I just might miss it if I’m not paying attention. Suddenly, my life looks so different than it did last week.

Rebekah Mei is an artist and educator with a deep love for the wisdom of artists and their power to affect change. Follow her @rebekahmei.art.

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