Welcome to the very first issue of Cup O’ Soup: a soupy recipe of mixed up ingredients, served in an unassuming everyday vessel. Aren’t we all just cups o’ soup, after all?!
I’ve been feeling, for a while now, that I want to rip it up and start again. I’m suffering from growing pains, as an artist and a human. Have you ever lived in the limbo of a very long and drawn out transitional phase? It feels like something you can put up with at first… it’s just a bit of waiting and pausing, but the cumulative effect will drive you cuckoo bananas. In other words… you feel like crawling out of your skin, like your life doesn’t fit you quite right, like you maybe even don’t know who you are. Perhaps you have experienced the death of something in your life and you’re trapped in purgatory… just waiting to move on to the next thing whether it’s good or bad.
In early 2020 I had made some bold career decisions.
I was going to make ceramics the focus of my art practice. If I were to become known exclusively as a ceramic artist, I would have been down with that.
I was going to write. I wanted to be more than an emotional-budget-foods-and-flowers-still-life artist. I wanted to explore my whole self, and I wanted to share it and see what happened. I was desperate to grow, but the process of growth was a little elusive to me, so writing felt like it was an adventurous and expansive path.
And then the pandemic hit, and the world essentially fell right apart. I lost access to my ceramics studio. I’d started a blog a day or two before the WHO declared the pandemic… and I just wasn’t up for blogging about the unfolding crisis. I went into survival mode, which was a combination of emotional numbness, scavenging for cash, guzzling cocktails, and dining on cheeseburgers.
For years up until March 2020 I was cutting back on alcohol and junk food. For you see, I was doing my best to optimize my health while I was trying to get pregnant, and then eventually got an infertility diagnosis, and then went through treatment for said infertility with a devastating pregnancy loss along the way. So, when my treatments were cancelled because the world shut down in March 2020, I let fucking loose. There was nothing to show up for, no reason to be my best baby-making self anymore. Plus, you know, it was a scary time and if a bit (or a lot) of whiskey and french fries could help get us through some hard nights, I was ok with that for a time.
Before it happened to me I always saw those going through infertility as “people who are sad because they can’t have babies.” But my experience has shown me that it makes you question your every value and belief, tears apart your confidence and understanding of self, asks you to face your own mortality and your passage through time, puts a strain on friendships and family, fucks with your relationship with your body/corporeal existence. Its non-stop grief and hope taking turns in a repeating cycle. And it’s a widely misunderstood disease that’s kept hidden: dark-ages style. The invisible burden of infertility fosters shame and isolation which adds some extra spicy flavour to the disenfranchised grief experience.
To be perfectly honest: I kind of wish I was able to keep it to myself. I don’t necessarily enjoy being this vulnerable. I’d prefer to just come out of it, either with a child or not, and move on with my life as if that’s just the natural and normal course of things: and none would be the wiser. But… after many years it has become the unavoidable main course entrée of my life. Navigating grief has become a constant. My body has been through a fuck of a lot. I’m exhausted. Above all else: I have never experienced such loneliness.
When I make art I bring a lot of myself to the process. I try to connect with others through honesty and vulnerability. I feel most gratified when something I make speaks to some sort of universal mood, feeling or suffering. When I think about it, it’s ultimately my ongoing search for belonging. It has been hard, sometimes impossible, to show up in my art practice while coping with the ravages of infertility. Because I go to some dark and hopeless places. When I’m in survival mode simply taking a shower and eating vegetables can be a major daily accomplishment. Infertility has deteriorated my self esteem. I’m protective of my emotions and it makes it hard to access the vulnerable place where I typically create from.
Many a well meaning therapist might suggest, “well, you’re an artist! why don’t you make some art about it?!” I have attempted to make art about infertility, and it has always wound up making me feel even more lost. It doesn’t speak to me or make me feel much better. It’s really challenging to even figure out how to talk about it with anyone let alone incorporate it into my art practice (and I’m just going to say it… for the most part infertility is a decidedly uncool subject. It’s full of clinical minutia, heartache and PSA level education that shuts off the minds of those who don’t have to endure it. It brings to mind images of wealthy white women with #infertilitywarrior instagrams, balayaged curling wand beachy waves, and throw cushions that read “all you need is faith, trust and a little bit of baby dust'' in rose gold cursive calligraphy. I do not relate).
I love my still life work, but in many ways it’s become a challenge to fit myself into a tidy little relatable pictures-of-food-and-flowers-addressing-income-disparity box. I’m a messy, silly and gloomy bitch with a whole lot of personal life going on at the moment. Infertility has changed me as a person, so why wouldn’t it change me as an artist?
So… I am inviting you to join me over a cup ‘o’ whatever the flavour of the moment happens to be. Here are some ingredients that might get thrown in the mix:
Diary type life stuff
A journey through my creative process
Thoughts on being a barely-making-it working artist
Some infertility related hoopla
Music, poems, people, movies, evening strolls, lunches, etc that inspire me
Feelings, deep thoughts, and other vulnerable goodies
Messiness, gloominess, silliness
Tales of intrigue and interest beyond art life: did you know that I love Star Trek, country music, and gardening? I worked for 20+ years in the service industry? I was a teenage raver in the 90’s? I have been insatiably devouring action (and other stupid) movies throughout infertility/pandemic? I love hot dogs? I have gone through most of my life living as a complete and utter fool?!
Cup O’ Soup entries will come out from time to time when I’m free and able to write something thoughtful and nice: it will be a surprise in your inbox!
*As promised: here is a little heads up for my next ceramics drop. A limited amount of stoneware treasures will be uploaded to my shop on Wednesday October 6th at 1:00pm EDT. Please allow a minute or two for all pieces to be uploaded/internet weirdness. I’ll have some big fancy vases, new milk jugs, classic box vases, a few mugs and a couple speckled martini glasses!
I’ll leave you with this Kylie song, which has been on repeat in my head as I’ve been preparing for the launch of Cup O’ Soup. I hope you can invite someone (yourself included) to come into your world this week :)
Hello, Anna. Greetings from a place on the other side of the world called Umina Beach. It's on the Australian East Coast just North of Sydney where I'm from. I can relate to what you say about being creative and trying to make a living. I'm a writer and photographer but worked in marketing for many years indeed I even got stuck in the backend of data analysis for a while which is so not me. I can barely manage five finger arithmetic these days. I came across you in frankie magazine which I'm researching for an assignment for a freelance journalism course. I ended up going on quite a lot of detours checking out creatives like yourself. was wondering whether you have read Kahlil Gibran: The Prophet? It's a great read for creatives grappling with who they are and their place in the overall scheme of things.
I am enjoying your blog.
Best wishes,
Rowena