Giants
2024-
The work is about the unique relationships between older people and babies and it is also a personal retrieval for me of my own childhood. It is about intergenerational experiences and lines of nameless ancestors that go far back. Ancestors that recognized when a baby or small child needs to be rescued. I asked myself “Who are the people that I belong too that showed up and created safety and abundance?”
I made three drawings of female giants and all of them are Elders. They travel between different time zones and landscapes– underworld, topside world and the liminal threshold in between the two.
They wear enormous durable, bad ass converse sneakers and sometimes sparkly sequined Chinese mesh slippers. They might put on blue eyeshadow and bright red lipstick as my grandmother did. Or wear a turban or kerchief when they are out and about, also as my grandmother and great grandmother did.
These equally tough and tender broads occupy a different world than the mundane black figures painted against a terra cotta red background.
After finishing these paintings my friend, the Lithuanian-American writer Audra Boudres gave me a manuscript to read about her childhood memories of Lithuanian summer camp. There she heard stories around the camp fire about “Laumes” who are gigantic old women who rescue children. Now we are walking this path together and collaborating on an anthology. Do you know any stories about female giants? Do you know of any stories about Elders who rescue, hide, and raise abandoned and abused children? We would love to know them!!!!
In my research I find there is a tendency to conflate female pirates with female giants. By doing so, the radical protectiveness of giants is diminished or erased. Pirate queens are usually young and beautiful while giants are aged grotesquely. Pirate queens meet the overcultural rewards that come from the thrill of having the power to win at something. Stories of female giants come from a different tradition where conquest is not the goal.
