One Year (1993)
commissioned by the Usher Gallery for 'Artists as Mothers' group show curated by Susan Wilson and Janita Elton. Touring nationally '93 - '95
Handwritten text engraved on glass table top
26 January 1992
Max Kieron was born at 12.29 am.
"In motherly love two people who were one become separate." Erich Fromm
We brought Max home after breakfast, I was holding him, looking at him, trying to discover what I was feeling, unable to accept my detachment. My mother was in the kitchen preparing lunch, even though Max was asleep I saw him smell onions for the first time.
26 February 1992
A dream of a bare white room, a floor of parched earth, but growing up one of the walls is a vine covered with bright green leaves.
I feel as if I am still pregnant, he fills my mind in the same way as he filled my body. Sometimes when I am holding him I feel a shock from his presence just like feeling his kicks inside my womb.
How different is it for Max to be outside rather than inside? He could see the change from light to dark and he could hear through the wall of my body, but now he can smell and taste and feel..... he can feel what it is to be dry as well as wet, he can feel hot and cold as well as warm, he can feel the sheets of our bed and my skin next to his.
26 March 1992
Nabokov describes looking into the eyes of his newborn son and seeing the shadows of ancient, fabulous forests where there were more birds than tigers and more fruit than thorns ....Now when I look at Max - he smiles. What happened to the look in his eyes that he had when he was born.
6 April 1992
I was sitting on a stile, Max was in his pram beside me. A man passed by on the path with his two dogs - he said 'you look at peace with the world' I was eating an orange.
26 May 1992
My breastmilk is no longer sufficient to satisfy Max's hunger and yet when I place a spoonful of food into his mouth he screws up his face at the strangeness - does he sense my reluctance? "It is a difficult thing for a mother to separate from her infant at the same speed at which the infant needs to become separate from her." Winnicott.
26 June 1992
Max wriggles when I change his nappy, he can roll over now and reach out to grasp things that he wants.I noticed today that in the last few months I have changed the colour or shape or position of everything in this house. Does this mean that Max is not enough for me? and if so am I good enough for Max?
26 July 1992
A mother has been murdered on Wimbledon Common in front of her two year old son, I have to put cream on Max's skin each time that we go out into the sunshine because otherwise his skin will burn.Now when I hold Max in front of the mirror in the bathroom I am sure that he understands that he is seeing a reflection of himself being held by his mother.
26 August 1992
We are staying in a windmill, the sails are still there but have been fixed so that they cannot move but Max has discovered how to crawl. He finds himself moving towards something that he wants and is delighted but then almost at the same time he cries because he is frightened that he will not be able to return.
26 September 1992
Kierkegaard says "In the very same moment that he is emphasizing his need of her, he is proving that he can do without her."
26 October 1992
I have travelled 300 miles and put three days between us, I have left Max in someone else's care, I have decided that he is old enough to stop breastfeeding, that he no longer needs my body. They tell me on the telephone that he is happy and he doesn't seem to miss me and that he goes to sleep each night apparently not noticing that I am not there to feed him - I am not reassured, would I rather hear that he is crying for me and won't settle?.
26 November 1992
Is it possible to be a good mother and a good artist? If I had to choose - would I hesitate? I dreamt of a good mother who drove so recklessly that her son knocked on my door and asked if he could call me mummy.Winnicott says "It is the good enough mother's carefully calibrated failure of adaptation, her failure to give him everything he needs, that permits her child slowly ... slowly to learn to tolerate frustration, to acquire a sense of reality and to learn to get some of what he needs for himself." wax, silver fork & spoon (distorted)
26 December 1992.
Max likes to play a game which goes like this - I hold him and Weaver is close by, Max reaches out to him and then as soon as he is in his father's arms he reaches out to come back to me and so on - it makes him laugh, it makes us laugh.
Eric Fromm writes - In erotic love two people who were separate become one. In motherly love two people who were one become separate. The mother must not only tolerate, she must wish and support the child's separation.