Terri Messinides

Before Twenty
muslin, cotton batting, paper, photo transfer, dryer sheet, quilted
12 x 13.75 in.

Our world is inhabited by multiple mothers – the ideal one, the fairy tale one, the real one, the birth one and the not-so-ideal one. Our culture can elevate and idealize mothers on Mother’s Day but does not know what to do with the mothers who are flawed and less than perfect. Eighteen years after my own mother’s death, I am still trying to reconcile the idea of the ideal mother with her mental illness and alcoholism and expressing this in my artwork.

© Terri Messinides