Mushroom Mushwomb

Life unraveling, life creating

Just a heads up! This is a slightly longer and much more personal retelling of an event within my life. There is less written about making the painting itself, and more around what was happening in my life at the time it was made. Thank you for being here.

*Also. I am currently taking a break from social media as I find it an overwhelming space for me to be in given the heaviness in the world. I am taking a step back and listening and learning and taking the space to understand. If you want to reach out, please feel free to send me a message below or via my website, as I won’t be checking my DM’s as much these days.*

Tropical Oyster Mushroom in watercolor, work in progress

I think the first time I ever saw a pink oyster mushroom was when my friend Stephanie Ganz shared a picture of a glorious beauty she picked up from Shirefolk farm at the the farmers market. The next Saturday, I showed up and there was one perfect, massive, pink oyster mushroom awaiting me. I bought the whole thing and brought it home to my apartment and photographed it, knowing it would be my next painting muse.

Tropical Oyster Mushroom Reference Image

I don’t know what it was about this particular mushroom, probably the unique dreamy beauty of the shape and bursting color. Reminding me of a human heart— some breathing living thing, while also of some other fantastical realm hidden within our imaginations. I have always been a mushroom lover and had painted typical brown oyster mushrooms in the past, but I knew that this one I wanted to honor in a different kind of way.

I started painting this piece in the early winter of 2020, into 2021. At the same time, my husband and I were trying to conceive. My husband was in a steady tech job and my business was going well. We definitely weren’t going anywhere because of the pandemic, and spending more and more time in our little apartment was also making us realize that building a family, buying a house, all of the settling in kinds of things, were what we wanted to plan for in the near future.

I was the kind of woman that wanted to do everything right when it came to trying to have a baby. I got abdominal massages and took the fanciest prenatal vitamins I could find. I was resting a lot more and moving a lot less. My painting process was becoming slower, gentler, easier going. My normal pescatarian diet now included pate and organ meats, since I was told they were golden fertility foods.

We got pregnant after trying for a couple of months. The day that I found out I was pregnant was the day that I put the finishing touches on this painting. It was also the lunar new year, and the moon has always been a significant symbol in my husband’s and my relationship (my wedding ring is an actual piece of the moon!).

The whole time I painted this piece, it felt like I was lost in some dreamy, cozy, safe space. When I realized I was pregnant, I also realized that I had been painting a womb this whole time— that alive, breathing, pink, fuzzy quality. Energetically, my desire to have a baby was also working its way into my artwork. We decided to nickname our baby ‘mushwomb’ due to the serendipity and alignment of it all.

Studio Space

We ended up losing mushwomb a few weeks later, a miscarriage at 8 weeks. To say that the loss rocked me would be an understatement. I had been doing everything right to get to this place of pregnancy, and I just couldn’t understand, after doing it all, how this could happen to me and my body and my relationship.

My husband and I went through an intense grieving period, incredibly supported by our community of friends and family. I’ll never forget coming home from the hospital the day of my D&C and my talented chef/baker friend, Olivia, delivering us a full homemade dinner— fresh baked sweet potato rolls, freshly made ravioli, salads, dessert, flowers.

Everyone who has experienced this kind of loss will feel similar in some ways, I’m sure, and in so many more ways it will be completely there own. I’ve never experienced a loss more personal. AND, I have never been offered the opportunity for healing, growth and expansion like this loss has offered me.

The next few months I spent doing EMDR therapy (which I HIGHLY recommend), and also wrapping my head around this whole journey of wanting to become a mother. I realized after many months of sitting with my experience, my desires, after working through the whole thing with my therapist, that there was a little voice within me that actually realized I didn’t desire to be a mother anymore. I came to this realization not from a place of being scared, but of feeling broken open and empowered to move forward in a new way.

My whole life, I thought I would be a mother, and from that place I had tried to become one. But below all of my own personal messaging and conditioning and planning, was a tiny little flame that said- “But maybe you don’t want this right now.” That little fire felt thrilling and free and more expansive. It felt like there was more for me to look at and learn there. For the very first time in my life I was asking myself, “But what if I don’t become a mother?” So much spilled out from that space. I saw my life moving in one thousand different directions, all exciting and creative and full of aliveness in a totally different way. I saw myself being able to resource myself and my community differently. I saw my role as an aunt figure becoming much more valuable. Fortunately, my husband and I came to this space together. We felt like we needed to take a gigantic step back and reevaluate what we were wanting out of this life. This loss ended up being a massive awakening for us both. We have both made some major life changes since then, stepping into more healing and creative roles within our work and our deeper sense of community and how we want to live our every day lives.

I have so much respect, awe and reverence for every single mother, both known and unknown. You all are incredible. For now, my husband and I are so happy in this space of enoughness and recognizing the many different directions we can move and flow in this life. And, the ability to change ones plans, to go off the course you set for yourself to honor what is alive in you now…that is the most powerful and freeing gift to be given.

This painting is a reminder to me of all the beauty and gifts that came from the loss of mushwomb. I look at this womb of pink magic and see that it was conjuring something so much bigger within my life.

I hope this writing is received as an offering and telling of one person’s story, and in no way a judgement or telling of anyone else’s. Loss and motherhood are so personal, and everyone has a different way that they wind and weave into one’s life.

Finished and Framed Mushwomb Painting

Thank you so much for reading.

This original painting is for sale, as well as prints in many sizes via my website.

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Current Inspirations and Musings…

-The People’s Forum has an Artists Against Apartheid letter open to signing for those of us artists supporting a cease fire in Gaza and freedom for Palestine. This website is also a really helpful resource for calling your reps to demand change and how to choose what issue you’d like to focus on.

-I am totally obsessed with Adrienne Marie Brown’s Witch School season of her podcast How to Survive the End of the World. She interviews different witchy beings and asks them all about how they create magic in their different unique talents and roles.

-It is a very heavy time in the world. I am finding resiliency in taking in beauty whenever I have the energy for it. I find a lot of peace and inspiration in Aboriginal artwork. If you are local to Virginia, I highly recommend checking out the Kluge Ruhe museum in Charlottesville. It is a small and beautiful collection of Aboriginal artworks, that to me feel like somehow they are able to emanate aliveness and movement while also lying still against a wall. Regardless of whether you are in Virginia or not, I highly recommend working in moments of looking at something you find beautiful every single day.

-Just finished listening to Boyd Varty’s The Lion Trackers Guide to Life on Audible. It’s a relatively short and very entertaining listen (Boyd narrates and does all the animal sounds). It’s also full of a lot of helpful and tangible wisdom.

-Tara Brach has beautiful guided meditations, and this one in particular is one of my favorites that is especially meaningful during any of life’s particularly hard moments.

May you find moments of peace, resilience, rest, and most of all love in these turbulent and fragile times.

This writing is purposely being published on Dia De Los Muertos, a celebration of reuniting the living with the dead. I hope you can find a moment of ritual to honor those who have passed in your own life too.