On Being: Maiden, Mother, Crone is a project that I founded, facilitated, and implemented out of a desire to express the link between women as we live, create, and mentor through generational connection and lived experiences. The artists chosen for this collaboration were Pinky MM Bass, tasked to make work about being Crone, and Sonja Langford, who included photographs depicting her views on being Maiden. I created work intended to express the phase of being Mother or Matron, in-between that of Maiden and Crone, the second aspect of the Triple Goddess. Details of the work I created for this exhibition, as well as artist statements for each of these bodies of work, can be found on this website by linking to the following pages: Drum Circle, Shedding Skin, My Mother's Hands, Shedding Tears, Comfort Food, and Cyborgs.
Exhibition Statement:
You may not remember, but let me tell you this, someone in some future time will think of us.
~ Sappho, seventh century BCE
Above is a favorite quote by the Greek poet, Sappho. It speaks of time as a circular experience. It suggests time as something past while being present and predicting the future, and it connects “you” to a more universal “us.” In many ways it also exemplifies the metaphor of the Maiden, Mother, and Crone, or the Triple Goddess. They depict mythical archetypes represented as three individual women, or states of womanhood, that are forever linked and woven into a life. They are shown in the symbol of the cycles of the moon, and at other times described as a web or a quilt.
Individually, the Maiden is a young woman. She is superficially thought of as being filled with passion, discovery, and exploration. Yet, as expressed in the work of Sonja Langford, life for the maiden is also a time of vulnerability and disillusionment. Even in mythology, the maiden Persephone is kidnapped and assaulted. It can be a difficult time learning to navigate in a world that poses threats in every darkened parking garage, and invasions of the body by doctors, society, and potentially violent men.
The Mother is a woman accepting responsibility and learning to surrender or let go. In the story of Persephone, it falls on the mother Demeter to find and rescue her, but ultimately to also let her daughter leave. As with the Maiden, there are challenges that crush fantasy in this stage. Wearing oneself too thin, competing in a patriarchal workplace, and ignoring self-care are grim realities juxtaposed with the imaginings of rocking sweet babies with adoring partners offering support and appreciative colleagues helping to promote our efforts. These realities exist in addition to our need to eventually settle an “empty nest” and having to allow the fruits of our labors, whether through children or careers, to experience life outside of our control. I often describe the process of making art as that of being a mother. Artists nurture ideas of the work we hope to make, then birth those ideas into reality as we create, but finally must let our work be enjoyed and interpreted by an audience outside of our influence.
The Crone has grown in wisdom and abilities. She lives in the stage of satisfaction, achievement, wisdom, and mentoring. It is the Crone Hekate who helped Demeter find Persephone. Perhaps for both the Maiden and the Mother, the Crone represents hope that they will finally achieve completeness. We dream of the peace her wisdom brings. The third stage of the Triple Goddess is when women are free to seek deeper meaning in life, spiritual significance, and transformation. Crone wisdom is the accumulated experience that has been learned over time and can be drawn upon. It has been said that when you cease to look to experts for authority and trust your own expertise, you find your Crone wisdom.
Yet, it begs to be noted that within each woman is a bit of the Maiden, Mother, and Crone no matter our age. Young women have intuition that acts as wisdom. Mothers / matrons experience the “passions of youth.” And as Pinky Bass has explained, “we never really leave one phase moving on to the next, but instead we inhabit all collectively as we grow.” The Crone still feels passion and is ever-learning, she is still a mother who loves and nurtures, and she recognizes her experience and knowledge as she becomes a guide and mentor.
Donna Haraway offered an interesting sub-title to her writing “Cyborg Manifesto” of, “An ironic dream of a common language for women in the integrated circuit.” This exhibition uses the common language of art and art making to express the three phases of the Triple Goddess. Art becomes the integrated circuit Haraway perhaps searches for in order to offer expressions of our individual experiences, as well as our connections as women because of them. We know our stories. It is through this exhibition that we hope to offer a glimmer of the universal collective unconscious that the viewer can feel as they consider the archetypes of the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone, ever present in our world.
~ Tonia Indigo Hughes
Exhibition Statement:
You may not remember, but let me tell you this, someone in some future time will think of us.
~ Sappho, seventh century BCE
Above is a favorite quote by the Greek poet, Sappho. It speaks of time as a circular experience. It suggests time as something past while being present and predicting the future, and it connects “you” to a more universal “us.” In many ways it also exemplifies the metaphor of the Maiden, Mother, and Crone, or the Triple Goddess. They depict mythical archetypes represented as three individual women, or states of womanhood, that are forever linked and woven into a life. They are shown in the symbol of the cycles of the moon, and at other times described as a web or a quilt.
Individually, the Maiden is a young woman. She is superficially thought of as being filled with passion, discovery, and exploration. Yet, as expressed in the work of Sonja Langford, life for the maiden is also a time of vulnerability and disillusionment. Even in mythology, the maiden Persephone is kidnapped and assaulted. It can be a difficult time learning to navigate in a world that poses threats in every darkened parking garage, and invasions of the body by doctors, society, and potentially violent men.
The Mother is a woman accepting responsibility and learning to surrender or let go. In the story of Persephone, it falls on the mother Demeter to find and rescue her, but ultimately to also let her daughter leave. As with the Maiden, there are challenges that crush fantasy in this stage. Wearing oneself too thin, competing in a patriarchal workplace, and ignoring self-care are grim realities juxtaposed with the imaginings of rocking sweet babies with adoring partners offering support and appreciative colleagues helping to promote our efforts. These realities exist in addition to our need to eventually settle an “empty nest” and having to allow the fruits of our labors, whether through children or careers, to experience life outside of our control. I often describe the process of making art as that of being a mother. Artists nurture ideas of the work we hope to make, then birth those ideas into reality as we create, but finally must let our work be enjoyed and interpreted by an audience outside of our influence.
The Crone has grown in wisdom and abilities. She lives in the stage of satisfaction, achievement, wisdom, and mentoring. It is the Crone Hekate who helped Demeter find Persephone. Perhaps for both the Maiden and the Mother, the Crone represents hope that they will finally achieve completeness. We dream of the peace her wisdom brings. The third stage of the Triple Goddess is when women are free to seek deeper meaning in life, spiritual significance, and transformation. Crone wisdom is the accumulated experience that has been learned over time and can be drawn upon. It has been said that when you cease to look to experts for authority and trust your own expertise, you find your Crone wisdom.
Yet, it begs to be noted that within each woman is a bit of the Maiden, Mother, and Crone no matter our age. Young women have intuition that acts as wisdom. Mothers / matrons experience the “passions of youth.” And as Pinky Bass has explained, “we never really leave one phase moving on to the next, but instead we inhabit all collectively as we grow.” The Crone still feels passion and is ever-learning, she is still a mother who loves and nurtures, and she recognizes her experience and knowledge as she becomes a guide and mentor.
Donna Haraway offered an interesting sub-title to her writing “Cyborg Manifesto” of, “An ironic dream of a common language for women in the integrated circuit.” This exhibition uses the common language of art and art making to express the three phases of the Triple Goddess. Art becomes the integrated circuit Haraway perhaps searches for in order to offer expressions of our individual experiences, as well as our connections as women because of them. We know our stories. It is through this exhibition that we hope to offer a glimmer of the universal collective unconscious that the viewer can feel as they consider the archetypes of the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone, ever present in our world.
~ Tonia Indigo Hughes