An Artistic Exploration of Adoption

You might remember that I had started a master's of education program in the fall of 1999, paralleling my search for my birthmother. My undergraduate degree was in visual arts, and I was the dean of an art college, and perhaps a bit of an artist myself, so I had a keen interest in the arts, especially visual arts. When I applied to the Creative Arts and Learning program, I'd written: "How does an artist learn? How does one teach a creative person and stimulate their creativity instead of stifling it?" I was referring specifically to my own undergraduate experience, where I felt that I had lost my creativity - in fact, I felt suffocated by the rigid and traditional curriculum. So that's where my mind was at when I applied.

However, the work and research that I focused on became more and more centered around being adopted since I was so engrossed in the process of finding my birthmother. (My post of June 15th: "A Dance into Grief" introduces this thread.)

In April 2000, I was immersed in the month-long Visual Arts module. One of our assignments was to create a life-size cut out (from foam core board) of ourselves and create an auto-biographical piece. I became very interested in the idea of how I could explain to my birthmother, whom I had never met, who I was. How could I express my emotions in a visual way?

I wrote in my grad school journal:

"I felt overwhelmed and confused about what I was doing (with the cut out project). I had two separate themes going on in my piece - one side about being an adoptee and being lonely, and on the other side I'm trying to describe who I am. I couldn't figure out how to join the two, if indeed they should be joined."

"By Sunday afternoon of the last weekend of the class, I was really struck by the paradox of what I'd accomplished. I have two names; would I have been a completely different person if I'd stayed with my birthmother? Or would I still be me? I'd still be me of course, but the ramifications of a different upbringing are astounding."

"I have been angry that I have a history which has been hidden from me; angry that I have no "roots", no place on this earth that I belong to. In the process of creating the piece, I realized that I am my own image, that having two names and imagining that I could have had two lives is all part of the one person that I am, my fate."

"While I was working on the piece, I became intrigued by the two birth certificates, issued by authorities and governed by laws designed to keep a child away from her biological mother in order to protect the mother that had given up the child for adoption. I was struck by the photocopies of the trees that I had turned upside down and made into veins running through my body, and around images of birth certificates, court orders and bits of correspondence between my birthmother and me. The veins enclosed images of my half-sisters and birthmother, the only other people on earth that I know of who are related to me by blood except my son. Veins running through important dates in my quest for a background, my roots. I realized, with some astounding clarity, that I'd been thinking of myself as two people, when in fact, I'm only one. And all of this stuff, this information and even having two backgrounds really just adds up to a complex me. It's almost overwhelming to me that it's okay to think of me as a whole, with only one complete set of information that explains who I am."

"I couldn't figure out the heads on either side of the cut-out until the last hour of class. Blank heads, no conclusions. In my pile of art stuff, I came across enlargements of ovals that I had painted several years ago. Beautiful lines, nothing on the inside. Those became the heads. Blank heads surrounded by many, many pieces of ripped up letters - bits of information - overwhelming my brain, but with dabs of gold light interspersed, like bits of clarity in the confusion of too much information. Questions still unanswered."

"Isn't it interesting that the process of adoption, which is such a wonderful, charitable process, can create feelings of abandonment and loneliness in a child, even though that child grew up with a loving, wonderful adoptive family? Understanding these feelings and their source counteracts the loneliness and sense of being misplaced and not belonging."

"A piece of art can certainly evoke thought and reflection. I am surrounded by art during my workdays and am often inspired by it. I've stood in front of a piece of art and admired colors, style, skill or process, but never reflected on how the images that the piece evoked might be tapping into my soul. When I was younger, I would not allow myself to feel deep emotions, such as love, because they were too dangerous. It was too easy to be hurt, abandoned. So it would follow that I would not allow myself to identify with images that required self-reflection. That sort of self-reflection is painful because it requires some sense of history and I have no known, conscious history."

After moving a number of times, including a cross-country move, all that remains of my cut-out project is the torso. At more than 5 and a half feet all, she got creased and bent and lost various parts over time. I wish I still had all of her pieces, but you get the gist. Two sides of me.