VIEWPOINT: ANGELA STRASSHEIM
MAY 10, 2020
We asked photographer Angela Strassheim to share with us this Mother's Day her thoughts on motherhood and what is has been like for her during the COVID19 crisis as a working mother. Strassheim's photo Janine Eight Months Pregnant caused quite a stir here in Jacksonville in 2014. During her Project Atrium exhibition, a Jacksonville city councilman likened the portrait to pornography trigging local and national public outrage. Strassheim offers here her thoughts on the fortifying support created by that experience and what it means to support each other in these troubled times.
ANGELA STRASSHEIM, Untitled (Lucian and Katherine), 2005. Archival pigment print, ed. 2/5, 40 x 50 inches. Museum purchase, Acquisition Fund and contributions from the Collector's Circle. © Angela Strassheim. Used by permission.
Never before the actual experience of motherhood could I have imagined exactly what it would feel like and how my life would change. My children have coaxed, teased, yanked and cuddled new parts of me out of my old self. Contending with all of the new challenges that they presented became the new normal and so my work, always about the domestic sphere, took on a decidedly maternal point of view. Lucian and Katherine, the centerpiece of the MOCA Jacksonville Project Atrium exhibition was actually made long before I became a mother, but I had never really embraced it until the exhibition. It was the first time I had ever exhibited it, and the Project Atrium exhibition was a new chapter in my work.
In November 2014, amidst claims that the Janine Eight Months Pregnant photograph from the show, a reclining nude on a couch, was pornography, I was reminded that even in its totally natural state of bearing life, a woman's body is a constant battleground. When #istandwithmoca bravely responded to denounce those claims, I felt galvanized with the people of Jacksonville and proud to take that stand with them.
ANGELA STRASSHEIM, Untitled (Janine Eight Months Pregnant), 2014. Archival pigment print, 50 x 60 inches. Gift of the artist and Andrea Meislin, 2015.09. © Angela Strassheim. Used by permission.
We are now faced with new challenges during this COVID-19 pandemic. It is clear we will all come out the other side affected somehow. A dear friend of mine had the virus the first week of March, and I was in her presence the day before she got really sick. She is a single mother, works as a nanny and was forced to self-quarantine. She couldn't work, and she and her 13-year-old son had to figure out how to live together without infecting him. Their life-threatening situation was but a glimpse of the havoc taking place all over the world. On a visit to bring her soup, we ended up making a portrait from outside her window the first day of her quarantine for Time Magazine.
A recent cover of Time Magazine featuring a portrait by Angela Strassheim.
For me that image defines the initial moments of heaviness, fear and the unknown which led to many sleepless nights. As weeks went by, sleepless nights gave way to waiting and stillness. I chose to embrace time with my family and the slower pace of life. I took solace in small positives. I loved that the smog lifted, that animals reclaimed some ground for themselves and new quiet allowed me to focus on moments that typically get lost in the rush of life. We so often remark how our kids grow up so fast, and that if you blink, you will miss their childhood. I have been granted this time to revel in my children's every detail. My reality has been long days with my 3 year-old daughter while my husband works with our son in his studio across the lawn. The time has been filled with joyful playing, learning, too much screen time, tears, begging for treats (“tweets”), digging in the garden, and anything else we find to do while we shelter at home.
Angela Strassheim - May 5, 2020
