3rd March 2011
AM
This was the first time the group met together. We were located in the gallery for the initial session and after introductions, were paired up to draw each others' real, or imagined, birth stories. Whilst one partner vocalised the narrative, the other drew from this story. Sometimes creating illustrative drawings of what happened, at other times creating abstract marks to convey the feelings and emotions.
Alex and Kellee
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| Alex and Kellee |
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| Kellee's depiction of Alex's birth story |
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| Kellee's imagined birth story as represented by Alex |
Anna and Jenny
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| Jenny's drawn interpretation of Anna's imagined birth story |
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| Anna's interpretation of Jenny's birth story |
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| Lisa and Lulu |
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| Lulu's drawings of Lisa's birth story |
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Lisa's representation of Lulu's birth
PM - Collage 
I collaboratively run a monthly collage night through a facebook group in Manchester and London. I decided to extend this to the work I was doing at the Whitworth. I spent a good few weeks sourcing pregnancy books both old and new which I brought in alongside some of the other books collected for collage night. We spent the afternoon session sitting around the large tables in the Worthington room cutting up these books and gluing and sticking images together. It was fascinating to see how women were portrayed throughout the different eras; the 70s seemed to hold on to varying notions of motherhood. Sometimes sickly sweet nostalgia at other times open and honest manuals about fertility and women’s bodies. See ‘Our Bodies Ourselves’ or 'Spiritual Midwifery'. All ages had sections dedicated to getting back into shape and by the eighties yoga for pregnancy was big! See Jane Balaskas’s books. Amazingly there is echoes of the forties and fifties imagery of postpartum excercise in all. Participants, however, had very different focuses. Lulu concentrated on the esoteric aspects, creation and the cosmos as well as the sheer pain and effort involved in birth. Anna was more preoccupied with the connection between sex, conception and birth.
Sue's collage
Jenny's collage
Lulu's collage 1 Lulu's collage 2
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The working from collage was really fun, looking at all the books amd magazines with an amazing diversity of imagery and collecting different pictures to put together. The feeling of concentration in the room as the cutting and gluing was going on was palpable. In the second image I was trying to get across an aspect of labour which is to do with confronting our fears. The intense feelings are there and how we confront those and ride them out is a bit like a shamanic journey to the underworld. The ring is the measurement, 10 cm.
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