Art work: “Pregnant Reflections”

Pregnant Reflections, 2006, 36” x 52”

(Catalogue _C8L2984_24-01-06: 36″ x 53 1/2″, edition of 100)

Pregnancy is the most magical and mysterious process that can happen to a woman, her partner, and existing children. As a father-to-be I felt so unnecessary but constantly strived to be involved.

I felt impudent, irrelevant, distant, curious, useless, confused, ignorant. I might as well have been on the moon looking back at the earth – watching as a bystander…

I was outside of this on-going, and soon-to-climax, marvel.

Pregnant Reflections – Male contribution

My role in all this magic was the use of my appendage for a few minutes several month previous – all but a faint memory now…

If that is how I felt with no changes happening to me physically or mentally, I can’t begin to imaging what effect it had on my dear wife who was undergoing all those changes… What was going on in her mind? What was going on in her body? What did she feel and see when she looked in the mirror?

How would I feel if I experienced such transformations in myself? What is it like to have a new small human being growing inside you: feeding off you, moving around and kicking you?

Pregnant Reflections – baby growing inside mother

Answers to these questions are meaningless because I cannot possibly relate to them in any way. Answers are foreign and can never be translated. There is no male vocabulary to translate into. It is as meaningless as asking a caterpillar what it is like to turn into a butterfly.

Pregnant Reflections – Sister

And what of our little princess – who was the centre of our universe? What did she make of it all? What was her comprehension and anticipation of it? She was too young to give any coherent articulation. Did she even really understand what was happening and what was going to happen? She was – and at the time of writing this, still is – more or less a completely emotional being. I sensed in her a growing anxiety but never quite understanding…

Will it be healthy? Will it be a boy or a girl? What will it look like? How will the delivery be?

On an artistic note, the transformation of my wife was very inspiring. Women are delightfully curvy anyway, but they enter another curved dimension when with child! It is as if they are three dimensional normally, then they become five dimensional for a few months. Concave, convex, soft, taught, primal. I think the thing I enjoyed most about her being pregnant was the expression of contentment, peace, fulfilment, contemplation, wonderment on her face…

Cambridge, England Jan. 2006

 Pregnant Reflections in artist’s dining room (click on image to see artists’ home studio, workshop, and gallery).