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A Still Life, from image to interpretation

Writer's picture: tanyafirestonetanyafirestone

Updated: May 17, 2020


We all have our moments when we look at a Still Life image, whether it is a frame captured, in the eye of the imagination, while noticing something extraordinary taking place among the natural landscape, or it is just sitting still in deep contemplation- reaching for higher artistic meaning while gazing at a masterpiece on a cold, sterile and serene museum wall. Our masterpiece, this week, has to do with memory as well as interdisciplinary learning methods. It is a little bit brilliant and a little bit turquoise; with a small dose of scientific inquiry at play.


It is a little bit of the turquoise color exposed and captured, by the student, in the Robin egg’s exterior shell my son and I stumbled upon on a nature walk this week. And as a result of that stumbling, it is a little bit of a dedication or declaration of love to a woman who passed away far too young, much like me in some ways, my mother’s mother graced our space this past week. She was a natural creative spirit, who through the war and prohibition, lost much of her family, of her intellectual opportunities for exploration, her wealth experienced in her youth, but one piece that she never lost was her magic or sense of self—a heart that was made for ultimate giving. Mildred, our Milly, was a woman who could wear pearls and paint purple irises in her sleep. She was a woman who could not forget the extreme losses she endured and comforted many, because of those losses. My family members often describe my life as one that runs a bit parallel to hers in some different but important ways. Her reality was formed from austere promise and great loss, side-by-side. She was a “riches-to-rags” (at least materially) story. In her story was a woman who was dedicated to showering love in the most uncommon places as a result of her hidden charms. I remember her giving a coat, on a cold winter day, to a woman (without one) in the hardest times within the streets of Detroit. I remember my own mother, along with her sister, speaking of their mother as this woman who led quiet revolutions (in the Sixties) in her basement on topics of faith and philosophy, as she was a woman who graduated top in her class and chose to devote most of her adult-life to her four children and wonderful husband. She was known to have whispered aloud, no more children of her own, because if they were here, she would love them fully, and there was only so much time in a day! On some days, I remember my mother sharing that her mother would escape to the afternoon matinee while my mom, tugging on her skirt, would wish to accompany her, and she would always say, “not today, honey, this is my time.”


So many mothers, including myself, feel a sense of guilt when taking a breather for an hour or two; even on a day meant for celebrating motherhood. I wonder how this can be, and if the God of the Universe feels saddened, at times, when gazing upon the hearts of women devoted to all too many things: When the world all too often overlooks the infinite number of hours (including the mothers themselves) extracted from the souls and spirits of women every year; every day; every hour. The love that a good and valuable mother holds, within her heart, showcases an ever-balancing act between a “Martha-and-Mary” image and needs a break (from time-to-time) from the oppressive ideologies unnaturally pressed upon the notion of motherhood.


For all of the mothers (which is all of us) who have been overwhelmed to some degree (some harder hit than others, depending upon the multitude of varying circumstances of each household) during this “stay-at-home” experience, the removing of any internal guilt, for taking a breather, is a necessary piece for uncovering strength and beauty all your own. Not all moms have had the opportunity to witness women-- like the women-- I have in my own life’s journey to womanhood. They are my blessings; a strong, patience, nurturing and stable place at the table were the role models in my own life. I am forever grateful for their supportive love and beautiful example- come what may. It helps me reconnect to every one of those women I’ve met and know (who are responsible for shaping who I have become at this moment and have yet to become) and it helps me connect to the Robin’s egg; to a sense of self needed for continuing and being a strong-hold within my own mothering capabilities.


The Robin egg, my son and I discovered this week, along with the plump earthworm peeking out underneath the tulip bed, sparked a still life within me, as if the mother of my mother was watching over my little boy and me that day. Suddenly, I was being wisped away to the picture (made out of intricate paper-layering) that hangs above my mother’s kitchen table in her simple, cottage-like French Country dining area. It is a picture that her mother, my grandmother, Milly designed and crafted in her early days of mothering, and that my grandfather, my mother’s father built out of world-war two lumber leftover from supply boxes sent overseas and sent to her in a special delivery-- to frame her nest of delicate, colorful, turquoise blue paper-made Robin’s eggs and spoke of during their time of separation at war. Her interpretation was of a mother Robin staring in over the three eggs, ready to hatch, all built out of layers and layers of delicate realistic, natural papers and glue. The art was built from love and whimsy and can hold its own among respected local artistry. The precision of her paper cuts for mimicking nature is completed with an accuracy that resembles the kind of precision needed so often in maintaining a strong and ever-moving household. We, as mothers, understand this type of precision. It often shows its simple face in knowing exactly when to pull out the water bottle at the end of a sports’ match or hot day on the beach or park. Or, it is in those moments when sharing the endless pieces of bubblegum in the “mom-bag” stash, at just the right time, with the family. I could not help but intersect the spirit of my grandmother’s love of art and nature, in her own frame, when my son and I worked with the still life we created from the picture I snapped on the iPhone of the Robin Egg Discovery from our nature walk. We were just out searching for components for our Nature Guide project that we are working on this spring. To my surprise, the spirit of the artist was waiting to guide us, as we worked to recreate the color of the turquoise in our still life renderings, at the kitchen table, this week—to place within our field guide.


It is a little bit brilliant in that there is a deep appreciation of scientific inquiry intermingled within both the guide and the still life renderings. We use language classification, presentation medias, and a bit of spiraling backward and forward in the educational form of delivery. My son had never completed a still life drawing before this week. He was overcome with a what-in-the-world type response toward what I was inviting him to do: “What do you mean... we try to recreate the picture, from what we see with as much accuracy as possible.” I explained that scientists and artists share a similar task in that they try to uncover the mysteries of our natural worlds by making copies of what they see and unpacking that information in the form of language (like our classification systems for identifying plant and animal species), graphs, charts, mathematical equations, etc. Building meaning and layering of knowledge, through precision, is a major part of the artist’s challenge; as well as the scientist’s. This field guide project, is something, I highly recommend for students of all ages and diverse curriculum goals. Even if you don’t have access to a park or yard at this time, you can download images of your favorite things out in nature (like 5-10 images) and recreate them by researching the scientific classifications of each natural image, recording and listening to the proper pronunciations of the terms, and completing a still life, of each image, as a keepsake of this time period spent being a mother and a school teacher. The scrapbooks, aka Field Guides, made may become the makings of a memory that could be marveled at in the generations of your family tree at different moments to come; just when needed, like the bubblegum or breath mint that mom or grandma has in her bag at the moment you least expect. My son is out hunting in the yard, working "tactilely" with drawing pencils, learning to use these drawing, colored pencils as watercolors in shading techniques. It is just fun and scientific on so many unforeseen levels, far beyond the classification of Kingdom, Phylum, Species, Genus, Order, etc.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Ms. Porcupine and son

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