Earth Mother (ver. 2)
Earth Mother, ver 2, oil on canvas, 24”x30”, © 2024 D. Yael Bernhard
A few weeks ago I posted an example of a painting titled The Nest that came out exactly as I saw it in my mind’s eye. That was an unusual occurrence. Earth Mother is the opposite. As always, it came to me as a complete and finished image, like a vision in a dream. But when I tried to bring it into form, it changed. This happens much more often than not. I’ve been puzzled by this phenomenon all my life: how can I so clearly see an image as if it were projected onto a movie screen in my head, and yet be unable to translate what I see onto paper or canvas?
It’s a mystery. I don’t know where my images come from, or why they challenge me so. They’re rather like children, coming in with an agenda of their own, which I cannot control.
I always prefer my original vision, so in an effort to be faithful to it I often use trial and error to explore different options. These may be sketches or complete drawings, which may partially solve the problem, but it’s the color version that deviates most from my first apparition. Here’s a pencil sketch and a charcoal drawing I did for Earth Mother:
Notice the small pencil sketch suggests a standing body for the mother, as if she were a tree trunk, while the charcoal drawing only shows her arms – and one hand trails off into roots. I agonized over these two different approaches, and ended up painting it both ways. I still don’t know which outcome is better or worse. I’ll share the other painting next week – you decide.
Like The Nest, this painting is an image of healing. Earth Mother harkens all the way back to my birth. I was born severely premature, weighing only 24 ounces, and spent the first three months of my life in an incubator – back in the 60s, the equivalent of an isolation tank, with no “kangaroo care” or human contact. For a tiny infant with no sense of time, this motherless beginning was an eternal, existential state. To say this was unnatural is an understatement. I’m grateful my life was saved, but it came with a heavy price: an indelible void that I’ve carried with me all my life.
Decades later during my own childbearing years, I created numerous mother & child images – including Earth Mother ver. 1, a small gouache painting done in 2005, when my youngest child was a toddler:
This painting came to me while gardening as my daughter played nearby in the grass. I stopped to nurse her, with dark, rich soil on my hands, and leaves and grass stuck in the corners of her mouth. We were one with the earth, and what came out of my body to feed her came from the earth. I loved it.
My collection of mother & child art comprises two whole sections of my website gallery, Fertility & Birth and Parenting & Family. Back in those days, midwives, doulas, labor coaches, lactation consultants, and attachment parenting organizations licensed my art and commissioned logos. Mothering Magazine published my art. As my children grew up, my art outgrew that phase and gradually moved on to other themes. But when I became an empty nester, the emptiness that took hold of me was painful and profound. My unconscious began giving birth to new images which I understood as mothering myself. That is the purpose of this painting and others like it, in which I envision myself in the arms of a bigger, more universal mother – nature herself, earth as mother, surrounding me with tender, loving roots. Safe and secure in this mother’s arms, my infant self is protected and peaceful.
Earth Mother ver. 2 is dark because the earth is dark, and night is dark, when infants most need to be held. Babies are not meant to be alone, ever. Similarly, the tree is bare because winter is when babies most need to be cradled in human warmth. These visual devices accentuate the child’s legitimate, intrinsic needs – but it was my unconscious that chose them, bringing forth the image in dark brown, violet, and teal. Whatever my doubts were about how to execute this painting, the colors were non-negotiable.
In this symbolic self-portrait, I’m both mother and child, trying to provide for myself what life did not: a birthright of inner security and a sense of belonging. My therapist calls this “an inside job.” So true. But unlike an illustration with a contract and a deadline, this is a job that is never really finished. I don’t think I’ll ever outlive what was imprinted on me during those first three months of my life, but I’m learning to accept and live with my limitations.
Artists don’t often get direct, quantifiable results from creating therapeutic images, but there’s a certain satisfaction in bringing these works to completion – and a restlessness that does not abate until the idea is expressed. Merely exploring these concepts is worthwhile for its own sake. I never know how the results will trickle down, or who else might benefit from a painting I do. We all carry birth stories, and every mother is a child.
And every life is rooted in the life-bearing soil of our maternal earth.
More paintings like this to come, as sure as I sit by my fire writing these words. For that reason, this one is for sale, to help pay for brushes, paint, canvas, and time to keep creating. You can also support my art by ordering a children’s book, calendar, poster, or greeting card from my webstore or by upgrading to a paid subscription to this newsletter. Any support is appreciated.
A good week to all!
D. Yael Bernhard
https://dyaelbernhard.com
Have you seen my other Substack, The Art of Health? In addition to being a visual artist, I’m also a certified integrative health & nutrition coach with a lifelong passion for natural food cooking and herbal medicine. Now in its second year, this illustrated newsletter explores cutting-edge concepts of nutrition. I strive to make relevant information clear and accessible, and to anchor essential health concepts in unique images. Check it out, and if you like it, please subscribe and help spread the word. Your support keeps my work going!