When were the prints created?
I am 67 now, I made these screen-prints over the last 5 years of the 10 year period that we were trying to conceive, 1992-1997. This was when I was aged around 38 - 43. It was after several years of investigations, treatments and surgery on my tubes and we then went through IVF.
Why did I do them?
I was making a lot of art during this period, in my spare time while working full time in social work and later in a community arts centre. I always found that personal themes would appear unconsciously that I learned to recognise, but tried not to get in the way of by overthinking them.
What they represent to me?
Woman with Bird (of Hope)
Screenprint with papercut stencils and oil pastel monoprinting, 29x19cm.
This one is about just that, hoping to get pregnant, with the bird about to fly as a symbol of hope. The theme evolved as I realised what the image was about, by the time I had finished it all came together consciously in my mind, kind of surprising myself.
Mother & Child in Blue
Screenprint with hand drawn photo stencils, 13x9cm.
Mother & Child in Red
Sketch with pen & coloured inks and pastel. 13x9cm.
The screen-print version is more controlled than the original sketch with red, which seems more overtly angry to me. Sometimes I prefer the original sketch. It makes me remember that I was contemplating motherhood a lot, yet afraid to represent it by leaving out a proper head of the child. Its more like a question mark. I recall thinking about my ambivalent feelings about becoming a mother because my own mother seemed to resent it so much. The figure is siting with the child landed in her lap and nothing she can do about it. But she doesn't really have one, its maybe all in her mind. I also remember that I was so afraid of being unable to have a child that the ambivalence I expressed here was also part of denying my wanting to myself, for fear of failure.
Red Woman
Screenprint with hand drawn photo stencils, 55x39cm. A larger print.
This one is more about feeling so left out. Red orange pain. My body not working for me when it did for the couple in the background. However I think the Red Woman in the foreground is so strongly female and there is a power about her presence that I enjoy. I didn't want any pity. The picture has many layers like that for me.
IVF & Us
1-3 mini prints. Hand drawn photo stencils, all 16x11cm.
These were done around the time of the last attempt of IVF when I knew this was my last chance. A very very difficult time. I tried to conjure up the hope of success of IVF in these prints, though I didn't set out to consciously, again the images just happened along, then I recognised what they were. I remember I was worried about my attitude as I felt disconnected from the process. It was so clinical (and there were some scary health consequences) that I often felt that it could not work. I feared my thoughts would make that true. It was such a strange thing to go through and these images were a way of trying to engage with it better. They were comforting to me. The threes in the images were the three fertilised eggs I had transplanted, and the awesome potential result of a triplets. I really like the red one of these in particular, to me it sums up the whole thing showing a child falling, either in birth or in death, in-between the couple.
Whats the value to me of doing these artworks?
I couldn't talk about these experiences at the time, partly because there was no one to talk to anyway, except my partner, I didn't know anyone else like me. I couldn't stand the pity if I tried to talk to friends. There were various unhelpful reactions so I shut up about it. The isolation didn't help my sense of shame and self blame. (I wish I had had Gateway Women then!)
Making art about it was something hugely positive for me. Sometimes selling them was good too, especially since I never explained them, (the titles were not as explicit as then) and all sorts of people bought them without asking questions, it felt good that they liked them for their own reasons!
Now I value them even more from so much time having passed, they give me a special personal record of that difficult time in my life. I have a gentle reminder for myself just in the background from a happier place in life.
Hellie Mulvaney