Birth of the Crone #1
Acrylic on canvas
18″ x 14″
1993

“You must give birth to your images. They are the future waiting to be born.”
-Rainer Maria Rilke

As I humorously play with the metaphor of rebirth, I mother my own crone. Rather than feeling diminished and unwanted, I declare feelings of growth and liberation.

Having created a whole series of “Birth of the Crone” images in contrast to the “Birth of Venus” paintings in art history, I know that woman of my generation need to bring the much-defaced crone back into our culture. Both the image and the word “crone” need reclaiming. As whacky as some of these images appear to be, I am an artist who believes that aesthetics and social responsibility are compatible.

“Each person is obligated to give new life to one’s own being.
[Tshuvah] . . . is an act of creation–self-creation.”
— Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik