Psychic Artistry: Meeting my Maternal Lineage.

"Raised by the women who are stronger than you know

A patchwork quilt of memory only women could have sewn

The threads were stitched by family hands, protected from the moth

By your mother and her mother, the weavers of your cloth."

Mary Chapin Carpenter, Family Hand

  Not long ago, I discovered this unique ability... I'm not sure it even has a name - none that I've found anyway, so I've decided to call it, Psychic Artistry.

  A few years ago, I gifted my friends and family with personal or sentimental watercolor portraits. It was really a way to practice my new hobby, because lets be honest, I hadn't watercolored since elementary school and as an artist it was the cheapest option for Yule gifts.

  I noticed in the months that followed, I'd catch myself saying, "I feel like so-n-so just told me..." or "you know who I was just visiting with... they were just HERE." Which probably sounded insane because half of the time the person I was talking about had been dead for many years. Somehow I knew, through my tentative, fledgling brushstrokes that I was spending real, quality time with whomever that person was.

  This past year (2017) brought the life changing experience of "1st Veil Priestess Training" at the Escondido Goddess Studio. Read about my journey HERE. This course involved a year long descent into our own personal underworlds and a rebirth of sorts for many of us. Throughout this time we were instructed to donate 30+ hours to a final project that connected to the sacred feminine in some way. The concept I landed on reintroduced itself in a dream (of course), though the idea had stirred many years before, that concept was to paint portraits of my ancestors, particularly my maternal lineage.

"…gestation being within the womb of our mother. The first mystery of our female journey begins here. Did you know, that as a [female] fetus that we already have all our eggs? Thus, our eggs are within us as we reside in our mother’s womb, while she still has her eggs, which were a part of her within her mother’s womb and so energetically our female reproductive essence is linked down the line of all our women ancestors! This is a profound energetic connection to contemplate, and thus it is our first mystery of our life cycle."- Amalya Peck

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This portrait experience began with my great-great grandmother, Marie Louise Leocadie Grenier, born in Quebec, 1870.

  My time painting Marie Louise felt extremely fast, my brush strokes moved so quickly and in large, broad, full colored swatches. I barely sketched out her face and I was already slapping on color, before I knew it, she felt done. Upon completion I felt relieved but uncharacteristically sad about the piece. Had I not done her memory justice?

  Through later discussion with my grandmother I discovered why. Marie Louise had been a very proper and direct woman who raised 12 children before the end of 1908. The following year she was quickly taken ill and passed away from Tuberculosis, she was only 39.

  I don't recall doing any sort of oil portrait before but I thought if the rest of my series went this smoothly, I'd be golden. It seemed only

natural to float through this series chronologically, so I tracked down this elegant, poised photo of my great grandmother, Doria.

 I decided to attempt a technique called, Grisaille, this processes is executed but painting in shades of grey or in other neutral colors such as burnt sienna or raw umber. After the underpainting has dried it is given many thin layers of color for a different effect of depth.

I journaled, "I wake in the morning, I see her and I'm happy, I feel her senses of perfection and poise. Her unflagging etiquette." I worked and reworked her complexion and skin coming away dissatisfied time and again. Her spirit was brighter than I was able to capture. I ultimately filled my brush with paint and whited out her features and started over. I had a sense she didn't want to be completed, she was enjoying our time together, I had only been one when she passed away in the spring 1990.

(Unfinished)

So I began again, outlining her eyes, mouth and nose; waking to her unfinished face each morning. Something told me to get on with it and start with the next portrait. I spent a week housesitting for someone which granted me uninterrupted solitude with my grandmother, Fabiola.

  My grandmother is still with us and I was lucky enough to spend time with her a few months before helping chart out the memoir she had been working on. I felt like I knew so much already and nothing about her at the same time. I got to hear her account of how she grew up, how she met my grandfather, how he proposed and more. In the beginning of any portrait I start with a charcoal or pencil sketch to get the basic shapes and dimensions. As soon as I put pencil to canvas I heard loud and clear, "You're painting my girl," over and over. "You're painting my girl, I'm so happy you're painting my girl." To think of it now still brings tears to my eyes.

The grisaille technique is more noticeable here in the beginning stages of her portrait. I learned it was much easier to make changes without worrying about shades and hues. I brought Doria along as well just in case the inclination to finish her arose. About half way through I began working on both of their portraits together but I sensed Doria didn't want to be completed until her daughter was. She was always putting her children first and wanted to come along for that journey.

Time Lapse of Fabiola with unfinished Doria at her side. ​

  Deciding on a direction for Fabiola's background proved difficult. I had a feeling she needed to have both warm and cool colors pushing against each other, but how to do so and why? I learned my grandmother has had a continuous battle with anxiety ever since she was a child. The feelings we have about wanted to do something well or have our upcoming week scheduled and organized is magnified within her. Having those colors warring in the background felt like I had possibly captured the dialogue that was happening within her.

  At last, I came to the final portrait of the series, my mother, Melonie. I began her painting with a sketch and grisaille underpainting the same way I did the others. However, her colored layers resulted in lots of swirling paint strokes. Unfortunately this photo was unable to capture the movement on the canvas of every little brush stroke. Around her neck you may be able to see the organic and raw brush lines, I did very minimal blending of the colors on the canvas. I simply "swished" them next to each other creating a dance of color, I feel this signifies her love of dance and the arts.

I had a difficult relationship with this painting. My mother is an artist as well and found it hard to express her feelings about seeing her own portrait painted. I would send her updates as the process went along and her feedback was... minimal, my little artistic heart took this as a dismissal, that she didn't like the painting.

She later writes, "It may have seemed that I brushed (no pun intended ) it off, but I didn't, not in the least. When I look at it, I see a young woman full of hopes and dreams, with a bright future ahead of her. I see a young woman who didn't even experience the joys of motherhood yet.

You captured what the photographer could not. His camera was a simple tool with a shutter and film. It was 15 minutes of work. Your eye, brush and heart led you on this journey. With your talent you showed the strength and gentleness of the women you came before you."

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When I first shared my decision with my instructor to dedicate this huge span of time to nothing but these portraits, to these women, she urged me to think about how this resonates with the journey of the sacred feminine. With my journey through and into the priestess hood.

Though the 12 classes of priestess training I was able to delve deep into my own personal underworld and heal though past transgressions. Grow, blossom, dance, cry, yell, howl proclaim what I needed and what my heart desired in order to feel content.

I'm not sure if any of my ancestors have ever been able to openly do what I've been able to do. Their scars and wounds may never have healed.

So I did this for them…

"Every woman who heals herself, helps heal all women who came before her, and all those who come after her.” -Christiane Northrup