Bloodline Archival board, menstrual blood 5” x 5” each, variable sized, currently thirty-nine, shown in grid or line 2020-ongoing
The creation of a perfect circle is dependent upon a fixed point in the center. Without the center, a round shape can be achieved, but not a perfect circle. A perfect circle is closed. Inside there is both space and protection. Within the circle there is stillness and a place to rest. The round shape is permeable. It has leaks and it is messy. During an intense and chaotic period of my life when I was caretaking two rapidly dying parents and going to graduate school among many other stressors, time seemed to spiral around me. I realized I was marking linear time only through my body, which keeps time organically, corporeally, with my very regular menstruation cycle.
My first menstruation cycle began one month after I turned twelve years old. Thanks to fifth grade sex-education class, I knew this meant that I could now “get” pregnant. My mother’s “talk” was simply, “don’t get pregnant.” It seemed the worst thing I could possibly do would be to conceive a child before I was married, so I quickly learned how to remain Not Pregnant. When my mother and father passed, I felt their loss in all the typical ways as well as ideologically because of my choice to remain child free. I realized that while my sister and brother had children that shared the traits and characteristics of my parents, I would not get to experience that particular connection through this gift of extending time generationally. I began attempting to make circles as a meditative practice to process loss, as a way of attempting to regain the safety and space once afforded me by my family structure, and to keep track of some sense time. The series Bloodline counts my years of menstruating without pregnancy and considers the connection to family through blood while inhabiting a body capable of menstruation.