Love Machine

'heartmilk' {graphite on 300gsm cold-pressed Fabriano} 2012

Having, yesterday, closed the first book of my motherhood - and packing it deep into the dustiest corner of my memories - today I open before me my second book of mothering - beckoningly open, pristine with joy!

I was asked last night whether I wanted to have another child. I gulped. And suddenly was engulfed with memories of Layla's sheer physical need of me as her mother. The nourishing from my mother's heart literally poured out through my body to grow and sustain this little soul, and her perpetually starving heart and fragile body. A little bird in my plump embrace. Sometimes fiercely protective. Sometimes tender and awe-stricken. And, so often, exhausted beyond what I ever thought I could bear. And did. 

This drawing fell out of me in a confused tangle of relief and anguish the morning after my milk dried up. I was flooded with guilt at what felt like a betrayal. Layla was too young to understand why my body 'stopped working'. (The only way to explain to a 2 year old in tears. Both of us.) The drawing outlines the physical mechanics of breastfeeding. Something desperately out of my control. And the inextricable knitting together of my body and my heart. The two as one functioning, nourishing, pounding, life-sustaining organ. A love machine.

Below are drawings and paintings from Jenny Savile, Paula Modersohn Becker and Picasso that push deep beyond the stoic taboos behind breastfeeding, and into the intimacy of mothering. (Also, a vintage diagram of the changing breast through pregnancy.)