Rebel With A Cause

Friends,

I want to share with you some of my thoughts behind the cute and cuddly. This is my self-therapy. A way of confronting some of my demons. I have been working on this series I Love You To Death, for two years now. I spend lots of my time researching the subject of mothers that murder their children, and when I think I might be reaching completion of this series, there is another mother on the news that has found a new way to kill her kids.

I have been asking my self why I have chosen such a bleak subject matter to paint about. I am a mother, and I thought my point of view would be from the mothers point of view. At times I tried to empathize with the mother, because she had to love her children. Some times I thought there is no way a mother could love her children, if she chooses to kill them. I often felt desensitized, until I remembered the characters in the paintings were real mothers and real children. Feeling desensitized allowed me to suppress my personal feelings, and complete my work.

On my journey creating these paintings, I have learned a lot about my self. These paintings are not about the feelings a mother has to deal with when she is confronted with killing her child, because as a mother I have never had similar feelings. Therefore I am not able to paint from experience. The paintings are about me. I had an epiphany one night, that answered the question, why I chose to paint about the subject matter of mothers killing their children. 

I am painting from the child’s perspective, not the mother’s perspective. I am painting about the child that witnesses her mother killing her siblings as she waits her turn to die. Living in fear and wondering if this is the day that her mother will snap. Helpless, and worried for her siblings. Always walking on pins and needles. Normal one minute and chaotic the next. On my journey I have learned a lot about my self. The process has been bitter because of the despair the mother and the child must be feeling. Sweet because I am able to confront feelings I have not been able confront in my past. 

I have been considering what the child must be going through right before she meets her fate. The last child must have seen unfathomable horrors knowing there is no way to escape. Until the child’s last breath, I believe she is feeling hope. A hope for change. A hope to be rescued. Hope is what we live for. 

Rebel With A Cause, 
Loretta G