Bloodline Archival board, menstrual blood 5” x 5” each, variable sized, currently thirty-nine, shown in grid or line 2020-ongoing
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 experience that particular type of connection. The series Bloodline counts my years of menstruating without pregnancy and considers the connection to family through blood.
