fotoplay: on the horizon 7

This weekend I received an email from my friend Maya, along with photographs of the work she created for the Fotoplay Invitational.  My goodness. Thankfully she wrote a long email which not only fully illuminates the work, but inspires me to turn back toward Renaissance Madonna and child paintings that until now, felt remote, antique, and too deeply iconic and Roman Catholic/Early Eastern Orthodox Christian for me to fully connect with the work as an artist. In thinking about how many times I’ve encountered and contemplated these images (both in person and in reproductions in books and art history classes) I see now (thanks to Maya’s work) that I missed a lot, as a creator of images, as a female, and as a mom. Maybe this is one of the dimensions of the artist’s journey and the daily practice of creating that’s most magical and exciting: You’re a perpetually changing student for life, studying, examining, wondering, taking things apart and putting them together… so you never know when you will break through walls that you didn’t even realize were there, blocking your way.

Here is Maya’s email to me: Hello Marcie. Big news, lots to say, you better get comfortable. This is going to be a long email, and as you can see from the work I made, something big is happening to me. It’s a pretty elaborate piece, this thing I created. I’m calling it “My Annunciation.” And that’s not only because I’m pregnant. OK. At this point you’re gasping. Given the completely fucked up relationship I have with my mother, and given how completely convinced I am that all of my troubles are due to that very ill woman, you know how ambivalent and even scared I’ve felt about bringing an innocent baby into the world. When I found out I was pregnant, after all the drama and vacillation between some kind of new, dare-I-admit-it-happiness and a great deal of old, way-too-familiar-panic, I did what I do best, which is turn to the Old Masters. I went to the Metropolitan Museum, and looked at art. But wait. Don’t think this was a noble gesture on my part. Don’t think you know where I’m going with this. Don’t think I knew where I was going. Being the first class, full-time narcissist that I am, I went to the Met because I thought I’d look at art that I would no longer be able to make. I thought I was at the beginning of some period of mourning. I was thinking about how a baby would completely dominate my days and my brain, so that I wouldn’t be able to make art, think about art, or even see it clearly anymore. What happened to me at the Met was that I fell in love. With Duccio. With Bellini. With Lippi. And I fell in love with Madonna and Child altarpieces in a way that I never ever ever could have imagined. Don’t laugh. You know I’m not known for my generosity of spirit, particularly when it comes to other women. But something profound happened to me when I looked at these paintings. It was like a door opened. A big portal into a fresh, hip, punk new art world. Yes punk. Just wait.

Let me tell you about “My Annunciation.”

So I obviously made a triptych, an altarpiece. I took your perfect-for-me-at-this-moment prompt, “What’s on the horizon,” with all those people watching, and I built an altar, to myself and my baby, up above the horizon. And there I am, behind everyone, in silhouette, standing on a beach, or a stage, or a platform. In the left wing of the triptych, you see six Madonnas that represent moms I don’t want to be. The professional martyr moms. The moms that look lost because of their babies. The moms that don’t look that comfortable. The moms that look put out, awkward, like they’re trying to be the mom that other people think they should be. I know, I know. It’s me passing judgement again. But really. What are images for? You and I talked about this ad nauseam. Images are both mirrors and windows.

These martyr Madonnas were painted by Crivelli, Mantegna, and Boticelli, Perugino, and Bellini. And while I do think they are beautifully painted paintings, I don’t want to be those moms.

In the middle panel I placed moms I would like to be. By Campin, van der Weyden, and Grünewald, Franciabigio, van Eyck, and Romano. They’re loose, easy, loving, joyful, relaxed. Is this going to be possible for a crazy person like me? Will I be able to give my breast to a baby, in public, and look like I’m genuinely granola? Will I be able to be “in the moment” which is what, it seems to me, being a great parent is so much about? Will I be able to let my baby be who they want to be, who they are, without projecting all of my dominating ideas on them? I honestly don’t know. Some days I feel optimistic. Empowered, to use a ridiculous word. But other days my disturbed mother haunts me in what’s supposed to be my own space. 

In any case. When I was making this altarpiece, particularly this center panel, I felt like I found some kind of new guide. But then.

Then I found Jean Fouquet. Whoa. Where have I been?!?! In obsessively looking at Madonna and Child paintings online, I came across this guy. Really. Where have I been? How could I have NOT known this painting. Now you know why I said punk. Painted in 1450. 1450!

I don’t know if you know this painting, the right panel in the Melun Diptych, but I’m telling you, when I saw this, I lost it. It is so crazy modern. So design-y. So beautiful in every way, that I’m going to say what people say in those made-for-bathroom inspirational story books or on Oprah: This painting changed my life.

This is the mom I actually think I can be. Corset and all. I know you get it. But Jean Fouquet. How did he get it? Maybe it’s because he was French. Maybe it’s because he was commissioned by Etienne Chevalier–a knight and French Ambassador to England–to create this painting, depicting Chevalier’s mistress as the Madonna figure. I could go on and on. Perfectly punk, right?

So at the top peak of my altarpiece I placed the baby’s due date. (That’s only three days after your birthday, Marcie.) Oh, and below that you see a compass rose, that for me is like a rose window. But notice my North is askew. This is because I am asking for some kind of guide during this whole crazy new phase in my life. But I know that I’m usually off center, not quite aligned with true north. In “My Annunciation,” my north leans toward Fouquet’s Madonna.

The last thing I’ll point out is how once again I’ve referenced your “Illuminating the Negative” work in my work. You know how I feel about it. It’s a body of work that has meant so much to me. But it’s possible that it’s been supplanted by the work of my new lover, Jean Fouquet. 🙂

I have to tell you that I’ve been reading your blog, and just like your friend Chris, I think that this Fotoplay challenge has led me to a whole new body of work. Altars, triptychs, Madonnas… who would have ever thought? Wish me luck. For everything. xoxo Maya.

So there it is, the ninth piece created for the Fotoplay Invitational. While I do think there is something perfectly modern about Maya’s creation of a digital altarpiece, I would love to see this work realized as a three dimensional piece, unconfined by the virtual world. Maybe that’s On the Horizon for her too… In the meantime, I’m loving her title, “My Annunciation.” Old French, from Late Latin, annunciatio(n), the announcement of something: “My Announcement.”