Birth Art for the Journey of Motherhood

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I was fortunate enough to host an evening of Birth Art last week with some friends I knew and some new friends.  Our host was Sharna Baker (find her on Facebook) who I met through a local parenting group.  I’ve never done it before but after hearing about it not long ago I was keen to try it so I organised it – I’m certainly no artist but I really enjoyed the experience.

 

Birth art and Birth art Cafes are for women (I’m not sure if Dads do it too?) to get together and talk, do a guided visualisation/meditation, explore some art together and make a mark on paper, whatever comes to you.  It’s about engaging the left side of our brain and getting in touch with our intuitive side rather than our logical right sided brain, something us busy Mums find hard to do.

Quote from the Birth Art Café Facebook page:

“Birth Art Cafe aims to offer a safe & confidential environment to explore your mothering journey without feeling judged. We reflect on our days, weeks or years as a mother and the feelings that arise, through listening, discussion and art. All mothers are welcome no matter how you birthed your baby/ feed your baby, raise your child, the only criteria is that you are a mother, and no art experience is needed.  We encourage mums to discuss only what feels safe to share while enjoying the relaxing time & most importantly the cake!  Each session is led by a trained and accredited volunteer Facilitator. The money we charge goes towards the refreshments, art materials and continued training of our volunteers.”

I asked some of my friends and my local parenting group if anyone was interested and a lot were up for it, in the end we had four of us plus the host what with holidays, theatre trips and general non committedness which was a nice number for my dining room.  We sat on cushions and bean bags and Sharna arrived and spread out a cloth where she placed small cards of artworks inspired by birth and mothering which reminded me of a tarot reading, with candles and incense.

 

After introducing ourselves – I knew Sharna and one other person, a fellow mum with two children, the others I met for the first time (apart from online) and they knew each other, both were pregnant (one with her first and one with her second).

We got ourselves comfortable, closed our eyes and Sharna guided us through a very relaxing and emotive visualisation and meditation.  I would have relaxed more if Baby D wasn’t still awake in his Jumperoo in the next room but I did my best to block the noise out and I did manage a state of relaxation and was able to visualise colours and felt myself floating along on another plane where I could focus on how I felt as a mother and the ups and downs I’ve faced and believe me it has been a journey (that’s another story).

 

I had the colour yellow come into my mind strongly when Sharna suggested a colour representing our feelings and it felt really joyous, I felt warm and safe and happy.  It probably helped that I was in my own home surrounded by my family.  She guided us to visualise a safe and happy place, for me it wasn’t a beach or a forest but my home, sofa, being warm and snuggled, no distractions and some comfort food!  Once the meditation was over we were given a large piece of sketch paper and a board to lean on.  We had available to us the use of pastels, watercolours, and pencils.  I was attracted to the watercolours but I had no idea how to use them!  I had some little trays I’d used for decorating cupcakes so I used them as colour mixing palettes and had great fun mixing colours and playing with the paints letting out my inner child!

 

I wanted my picture to represent a journey, so I started with the yellow colour I’d seen and worked at getting the right yellow (took it very seriously!) and then painted a circle which turned into a sun with solar flares.  At the beginning of my ‘journey at the other side of the page I painted a rainbow with a black circle – pretty obvious symbolism here but it’s a story for another blog.  A choppy sea followed next and then I wanted to put the children in there somewhere and they came out as balloons!  I had a blank space and felt compelled to fill it, something I learned that we shouldn’t necessarily do just to fill the page but I did in the end, I changed to pastels and drew a mother figure like those I’d read about in Jean M Auel’s Earths Children novels and coloured the breasts in quite prominently!  I have really enjoyed my breastfeeding journey this time, not 100% of the time, but on the whole it’s been a revelation as I only managed to 5 months the other times and that was combination feeding for the most part and I’m still doing it this time at nearly 9 months!  It has helped me feel empowered as a woman, as has giving birth and being a mother.  Once I’d drawn her she seemed to look pregnant so I drew a tree of life on her belly.  A couple of fern like strokes because by then I was feeling quite the treehugger and I was done.  As I said I’m no artist but here we are:

The others had done really well and it was revealed that this lady had an art degree!  It summed up her pregnancy journey beautifully:

Another lovely drawing with the focus on family:

And finally, a more symbolic approach:

We talked about our art and what it meant to us, and during the evening Sharna had us pick out statements/ questions from a jar to make us think.  A slice of cake and we were done!  I thoroughly recommend it, it would be particularly beneficial for those who have struggled or are struggling with postnatal depression, coming to terms with a loss or a traumatic birth or just for those who are interested in expressing themselves as mothers in a different way and having some time for reflection which we all so badly need  (that’s the bit I liked the most).  The little art cards were available to look at and study, I felt drawn to one in particular which I’ve made the feature image of this post, and Sharna let me keep it, it’s very powerful and as a midwife I always think women are so strong when they’re labouring and birthing however they do it and this comes across in the artwork – I’ve kept it with my favourite picture of me and Baby D when he was tiny.

Some more birth art I’ve found that inspires, I hope you’ve found this post inspiring, feel free to comment or ask questions.

 

 

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