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MAMA Issue 50: Mothers and trees. Roots and families. Art and love.

The Mother Tree

I want to write about mothers and trees. Roots and families. Art and love.

Last year our world appeared to be on fire. Headlines captured devastating events around the globe. From politics to pandemics, the news cycle, as well as our personal lives, were upended in so many ways. In the midst of one of many California blazes, a story about a redwood matriarch dubbed the Mother of the Forest in Santa Cruz, California caught my attention.

Mother of the Forest is one of the tallest trees in Santa Cruz Park. A symbolic womb at her core forms an 8 x 13 foot room, or a hobbit hole, or a sacred space — depending on your perspective.   

I have become obsessed with trees. 

Trees are a testimony to patience and resilience. They offer shelter, contribute to healthy ecosystems, and fight climate change. Redwoods protect and support each other as well as other sapling growth by creating family circles sprouted from the roots of a parent tree. These families may or may not be genetically related. These lessons in cooperation can be a metaphor for humanity in its current fragmented state.

One month ago, I headed back to the MOM Art Annex in Florida after a prolonged absence. Ready to explore the next steps with our community and see to the ongoing growth of the Museum project, I arrived energized. Rising in the midst of display artifacts, art, and birthing objects, a new exhibit towers in the heart of the Annex. Artist Helen Hiebert’s Mother Tree is a brilliant illuminated sculpture made of paper and thread on loan to us for the year.

In preparation for the Mother Tree’s arrival, I pursued the book Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard, a deeply inspiring tale of scientific discovery and maternal care. I pondered our new directions with the Museum of Motherhood and gladly welcomed a guest artist residency proposal by Polly Wood, which included constructing an empty nest as a ceremonial acknowledgement of her daughter going off to college.

“A nest,” I exclaimed. “How timely for the Mother Tree’s arrival.”

Polly and I spent a glorious two weeks spinning magic. A blog about her residency is online at MOM. The next guest artist arrives in mid-December with work featuring among other things, landscapes and trees in gorgeous muted watercolors. 

Polly Wood working on her “Empty Nest” at MOM

As the year winds down, I gratefully acknowledge the manner in which I’ve been able to spend time with emerging mother artists here in St. Petersburg, and also family as well. My son, his wife, and their baby have been on-site for the last six weeks, crowded into the MOM Art Annex’s tiny space– along with the exhibits, myself, and visiting guests. My one-year old granddaughter crawls around the carefully childproofed perimeter while I proudly chase after her.  

In these accompanying photos, I introduce my granddaughter to a world of female sheroes, the art of motherhood, and a variety of messages aimed at empowering women and girls. The images for this MAMA exhibit also include my own self-portrait surrounded by the Mother Tree’s yarn roots in a symbolic gesture of rebirth, renewal, and generational connection. 

Martha Joy Rose ; rebirth with Helen Hiebert’s “Mother Tree” sculpture and Polly Wood’s “Nest”

Every major tree metaphor reminds me to trust in the slow, yet, steady growth of the museum project. Good things take time. Like a redwood, we want the museum to stand as a testament to the ages. We want to collaborate with our community and our surroundings. These things develop and deepen slowly. We are the connection. We are the women. We are the love. We are the trees.

If you would like to donate to our Mother Tree acquisitions campaign, please consider helping us purchase the Mother Tree in perpetuity by making a tax-deductible donation here.

In gratitude and perseverance, Martha Joy Rose

Frank and Sojourner Truth at MOM 2021

Raising the next generation of empowered humans means teaching them about our past: our struggles, problems, issues, and herstory. At the MOM Art Annex we do exactly that, while building towards our future by developing the footprint for the Museum of Motherhood project as an international education and exhibition destination.

I look forward hopefully, understanding deeply the importance of engaging with people of all ages in an inclusive, supportive, and smart environment. Together we can elevate the voices and artistic endeavors of all humans, and in our case, especially m/others, procreators, dreamers, childless by choice, women in history and present day sheroes– as well as those who have suffered loss and infertility.

My granddaughter and I have started this conversation early and often – even though she is still pre-verbal. A picture is worth a thousand words in this case!

Martha Joy Rose: Martha Joy Rose is a community organizer and Museum of Motherhood founder. Her work has been published across blogs and academic journals and she has performed with her band Housewives On Prozac around the world. She is the NOW-NYC recipient of the Susan B. Anthony Award, her Mamapalooza Festival Series has been recognized as “Best in Girl-Power Events”, and her music has appeared on the Billboard Top 100 Dance Charts. She founded the Museum of Motherhood in 2003, created the Motherhood Foundation 501c3 non-profit in 2005, saw it flourish in NYC from 2011-2014, and then pop up at several academic institutions. After teaching Mother Studies at the college level, she moved to St. Petersburg, Florida. Her current live/work space is devoted to the exploration of mother-labor & performance art while she oversees the continued growth of the Museum of Motherhood project.

Helen Hiebert: Helen Hiebert constructs installations, films, artists’ books and works in paper using handmade paper as her primary medium. Her sculpture Mother Tree serves as a symbol of the vulnerability, strength and sense of community she feels as a mother. The seven-foot tall handmade paper dress/tree features single strands of thread which extend from the bodice of the dress, representing mother’s milk, and cascade to the floor, transforming via crochet into roots which pile up, filling the surrounding space as a tree’s roots would fill the ground beneath it. The transformation from dress to tree and root to soil symbolizes the mother as a provider and nurturer throughout human development. Since her inception, hundreds of people have contributed to crocheting roots with messages of family, friendship, and affirmation.

Procreate Project, the Museum of Motherhood and the Mom Egg Review are pleased to announce the 50th edition of this scholarly discourse. Literature intersects with art to explore the wonder and the challenges of motherhood. Using words and art to connect new pathways between the academic, the para-academic, the digital and the real, as well as the everyday: wherever you live, work and play, the Art of Motherhood is made manifest. #JoinMAMA #artandmotherhood

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Art Blog Feminism gender International MAMA MOM Art Annex MoM Pop Up motherhood

M.A.M.A. Issue 45: Rubiane Maia

April 2021: Art and words by Rubiane Maia

Procreate Project, the Museum of Motherhood and the Mom Egg Review are pleased to announce the 45th edition of this scholarly discourse. Literature intersects with art to explore the wonder and the challenges of motherhood. Using words and art to connect new pathways between the academic, the para-academic, the digital and the real, as well as the everyday: wherever you live, work and play, the Art of Motherhood is made manifest. #JoinMAMA #artandmotherhood

For the last three years, I have been investigating the concept of memory and its resonances in our way of existing. More specifically, focusing on the philosophy of Time proposed by Henri Bergson, which affirms memory as duration. In other words, it deals in depth with the subjective time that implies the continuous relationship between our consciousness and the world. This means that our consciousness (which is also memory) is not linear, as it is constituted on the indivisibility of past and present. In Bergson’s words, ‘duration is the continuous progress of the past that gnaws the future and swells as it progresses’. In my opinion, this sentence precisely confirms  the hypothesis that memory cannot be configured as a drawer where remembrances are saved, because as the past is preserved by itself as a virtuality that coexists with us, it accompanies us entirely: each one of us is the condensation of the history lived since birth – and even before it.

DISSOLUTIONS

our bodies inhabit landscapes

even on mainland, 

we follow the speed of the fish 

arms take the form of dorsal fins 

legs, tails

we are submerged, 

drunk with salt water, contradictions and algorithms 

our scaly skin burns, stings 

it is true that not all parts of the body fit together – – 

becoming-creature, becoming-noise, becoming-mud 

the ocean is full of mythologies 

hybrid beings,

bird fishes, jellyfishes, hammerhead sharks 

in the middle east, 

mermaids are goddesses of the sea, of vegetation and rain – – 

they smell of dew

in some places in Africa, 

they are stormy forces that mobilize the energy of creation

Mameto – Dandá – Kianda – –

Dandalunda, mãe-d’água, Odoyá! 

our bodies not only inhabit,

they breath the landscapes

turbulent waters,

urine – giant waves – undertow – –

my fins fold in different directions at the same time

unlike fish, i have lungs:

two spongy cones that I use  to filter the air

yes, i breathe,

i, us, the fishes and some other creatures

we breathe, even against our desire

involuntary act,

first and last movement of the life

vortex between birth and death

a gentle breeze comes in through the nostril,

fills the chest,

activates the diaphragm,

moves your tongue,

vibrates

thus, the voice is born

from voice to song, from song to word, from word to scream

our bodies not only breathe, 

they become landscapes

from each breath a mountain emerges, 

hills – dunes – stones  – – 

presence

organs are territories, 

complex systems, regions 

they make mazes and borders 

they form valleys, subtle surfaces, rivers and lakes

every mouth is an abyss, 

an endless hole

rough skin, dry leaf 

dark eyes, fissures 

anus, tunnel 

blood, current 

sweat, combustion. 

sneeze, storm 

feet, roots 

bones, architecture 

breath, gust of warm wind

body-landscape 

landscaped bodies

we inhale, suspend, count to five 

we exhale, suspend, count to four 

we inhale, suspend, count to three

silence 

we count to two, expand

one

i am breathing as someone that turn the key, 

shifting worlds to open and close the body

physical, mental, emotional,

rupture – interference – happening – – 

action that operates in the invisible, 

in a constant process of variation 

difference

breathing is to metabolize, 

dissolving all forms, segments, rules, institutions. 

breathing is channeling, 

an offer from you to you – sensitive laboratory – –

an unpredictable device

vivid dreams

sigh

* Photographs by Manuel Vason

More about Rubiane:

Rubiane Maia is a Brazilian visual artist based between Folkestone, UK and Vitoria, Brazil. She completed a degree in Visual Arts and a Master degree in Institutional Psychology at Federal University of Espírito Santo, Brazil. Her artwork is an hybrid practice across performance, video, installation and text, occasionally flirting with drawing and collage. She is attracted by states of synergy, encompassing the invisible relationships of affect and flux, and investigates the body in order to amplify the possibilities of perception beyond the habitual. By doing so, she is constantly re-elaborating her personal notion of existential territories (spatial, temporal, cognitive, social and political). More recently, she has been researching the concept of memory and its relationship with language and the phenomena of incorporation [embodiment], often making use of personal narratives as a device for action and resilience.

In 2014/15 she received a scholarship at the Atelier in Visual Arts of the Secretary of Culture of Espírito Santo, she launched the book ‘Self Portrait in Footnotes’ and participated in the exhibition ‘Modos de Usar’ at the Museu de Arte of Espírito Santo. In 2015, she took part at the workshop ‘Cleaning the House’ with Marina Abramovic and participated at the exhibition ‘Terra Comunal – Marina Abramovic + MAI’, at SESC Pompéia, São Paulo with the long durational performance ‘The Garden’ (2 months). In the same year, she produced her first short film ‘EVO’ that premiered at the 26th Festival Internacional de São Paulo and 22nd Festival de Cinema de Vitória. In 2016, she worked on the project titled ‘Preparation for Aerial Exercise, the Desert and the Mountain’ which required her to travel to high landscapes of Uyuni (Bolivia), Pico da Bandeira (Espírito Santo/Minas Gerais, BRA) and Monte Roraima (Roraima, BRA/Santa Helena de Uyarén, VEN). In the same year she completed her second short film titled ‘ÁDITO’. Since 2018 she has been working on the creation of a ‘Book-Performance’, a series of actions devised in response to specific autobiographical texts particularly influenced by personal experiences of racism and misogyny.

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Birth Blog Education Featured gender health Medical motherhood Sociology

TRACKING THE COURSE OF MUTINY AGAINST THE TYRANNY

Op-ed, Martha Joy Rose May 13, 2019 

Despite headlines and discourse, the most unchanging thing about motherhood is how much it doesn’t change. While parenting narratives in the public arena are more visible than ever, while books on mothers and mothering are written and published at a dizzying pace (see Demeter Press among others), and while activists and bloggers do their best to articulate the realities and difficulties of mothering, the truth will make you mad. Policies ranging from healthcare to human rights in the United States have not changed much at all in the last 50 years, and if anything, they appear to be moving backward at times.

This year’s Mothers’ Day came and went with the usual fanfare of compliments, cards, and lovely acknowledgments. But, the truth of being a woman, or a woman of color in America, can be very scary. Aside from the well-known, repetitive conversation around everything from our as-of-yet still unratified ERA to maternal morbidity rates, we observed a rollback of certain state’s abortion rights, and the constant pressure mothers and caregivers experience as they try to balance unrealistic expectations with work pressures. All of this occurs in the midst of corporate greed and governmental callousness which is reflected in our lack of family-friendly policies.

‘All The Rage’ Isn’t About Moms Having It All — It’s About Moms Doing It All’

NPR: Weekend Edition, May 12, 2019

On why domestic demands on mothers actually increased in the mid-’90s

The expectations for motherhood suddenly … went through the roof. … One of the reasons that academics will cite for why this happened at the same time that [mothers’] labor force participation peaked was because there was a lot of anxiety about what was going to happen to the kids. All these moms are now in the workforce in greater numbers than ever: What’s going to happen to the children? So the standards for mothering kind of ratcheted up. [Link to ARTICLE].

Feminism & Motherhood

As a woman, I am angry. But as a mother, I’m seething. There’s a robust conversation right now about the historical and present power of female rage as a tool for social change. A number of books, articles, and social media hashtags are pointing out that women are fed up. Instead of being silenced by patriarchal ideas of women’s emotions as “hysteria,” women are embracing their anger as a social and political force to be reckoned with. That is great news for women. But what about mothers as a key subset of women? ~Kimberly Seals Allers for The Washington Post 2019: [LINK to article]

There is a lot to be angry about. Women of color in the USA, who are pregnant, have the most to be worried about. Their prenatal care, birth care, and post-birth care are all persistently worse than their white counterparts. This problematic scenario can be linked to many ongoing issues related to systemic racism, socio-economic status, and the apparent lack of willingness for medical professionals to listen to the voices of these women. [Read more here in the news at this link].

This year’s Museum of Motherhood annual conference focused on “Rewriting Trauma and Birth.” We welcomed keynote speaker Khiara M. Bridges, who is the author of Reproducing Race. Her book smartly explores the social construction of race in medical settings and helps to examine the forces that coerce women into dangerous birth scenarios.

So, whether over-burdened by maternal workloads, subject to a medical crisis of deadly proportions or managing the anger associated with outdated policies that do not support women and families, something has got to shift.

Before we can identify solutions we must notice the problems and call them out. By naming and labeling the issues we have engaged in the first line of offense. Some people will voice objections. They will list the ways in which gender mirrors biology. They will do their best to keep enduring structures of power and privilege intact. However, we just keep raising our voices and turning up the volume.

Kimberly Seals Allers proposes several steps for improving the state of families in America. Some of those include obvious changes to healthcare. Others must focus on policy shifts that recognize unpaid maternal labor, as well as the development of affordable childcare options for working mothers.

So what has been going on for the last 15 years? Below is an article that was written by Jill Brooke for the Chicago Tribune during a burst of notoriety for the Mom Rockers who had set their minds on creating change within the home as well as the world at large. While the emphasis on using art and music for social change has amped up the volume on women’s issues, many of the problems these founding artists sought to address have remained stubbornly ingrained in our institutions, including the “institution of the family.” You can read more on this subject in the book, the Music of Motherhood (Demeter Press 2018).

Course development and educational programming that break the barrier on women’s (and gender) studies in the university and beyond are an important step in disrupting repetitive patterns that keep individuals trapped in hegemonic discourses and force the idealization of parenting roles. Here at MOM, we are striking back by pushing back. Giving a nod to the work of Guerrilla Girl Donna Kaz, we encourage those of you who are seeking some strategies for change to utilize her work to create activist platforms. LINK

” I have heard many people express their own powerlessness as they face threats to their rights and the rights of those they support on a daily basis. Perhaps you agree there is a need to understand how to organize and see results, on a local level. Maybe you search for activist knowledge and are hungry for something to guide you through the steps of creatively supporting a cause. PUSH/PUSHBACK will fill that need.”

The band Housewives On Prozac was championing pushback through music in the late nineties through 2008. Their song “Eat Your Damn Spaghetti” was a rallying cry for overwhelmed and frustrated mothers. You can watch the video below. Meanwhile, the MaMaPaLooZa Festival, which is ongoing in New York City and Sydney, Australia aims to create dynamic change through empowerment, education, and large-scale community events. Other super-important and amazing organizations (to name a very few), include MomsRising, SisterSong, and The Center for Reproductive Rights.

TRACKING THE COURSE OF MUTINY AGAINST THE TYRANNY OF PARENTAL EXPECTATIONS

December 21, 2004,|By Jill Brooke, Special to the Tribune

“I tried to be the perfect mom but then buckled. It’s time for a little liberation, and I want to give moms permission to nourish a piece of themselves and then go back to wiping the kids’ noses, cooking dinner and carpooling.”

And what better way to launch a rebellion than rock ‘n’ roll? Link to ARTICLE.

Finally, let us ask the question: Why does America have the least-friendly family policies? The U.S. is the only country in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) not to offer paid leave on a national basis.

“People think motherhood is inherently overwhelming because we’ve made that idea seem natural,” said Virginia Rutter, a professor of sociology at Framingham State University in Massachusetts and author of “Families as They Really Are.” “We normalize the hardships of motherhood. … This is now what’s familiar.”

LINK to article

We must continue to work together for the kinds of change that will benefit all American families and not just a few. The best way to do this is to advocate for intersectional, interdisciplinary education and activism that affects attitudes, policy, and the private/public sector in ways that support women and men and make the world an easier place for caregivers to navigate.

*Mamava is a company that hopes to normalize breastfeeding and support nursing mothers. One of their lactation spaces in JFK airport is the featured photo on this post. #Mamava #Mothers #MOM #JoinMama