Circling Women's Stories for International Women's Day

In Writing a Woman’s Life, Carolyn Heilbrun wonders if a woman’s story can be told in isolation.  She writes, “I suspect that female narratives will be found where women exchange stories, where they read and talk collectively of ambition and possibilities and accomplishments.” (46)

I recently entered a painting in an International Women’s Day art show in Orillia, ON.  The show is in its third decade and is unjuried in order to create space for as many women as possible to express themselves.  The theme for the show this year is Connections.

As I viewed the exhibition I noticed several expressions of the theme.  There were many pieces that explored our connections to nature with trees, roots, webs, land, water and sky.  Some artists depicted the Earth as a woman.  There were many pieces that depicted the connection to the self and to family and other people, including hands touching, mothers and babies and family trees.  Connections to place and through time were also explored.  The power of connection for survival, growth, healing ad flourishing was expressed over and over.

Overall, the exhibition expressed to me, diversity, richness, abundance, possibility, security and the strength of many fibres, many voice.  In the stories that went along with the art, I found courage, freedom, strength, beauty, wonder, compassion, giving and nurturing life and magic rediscovered.

Some of the artists shared the stories behind their work at the Orillia Storytelling circle held in the same building.  I listened to the various artists telling the stories of the people, animals and land that influenced their work.  I wondered if it was true that women’s narratives will only be found where women exchange stories as Carolyn Heilbrun wrote.  It seemed that these women’s narratives would not be authentic without the stories of their connections being shared with other women.  I wondered if there was something alchemical about women telling and listening.  

Personally, I found it empowering to tell the story of my painting in a circle that had invited such stories.  There was no competition to find space in which to speak, no fight to be heard which is all too common in our society.  We each held a raven feather as we spoke, the sign that others would listen and wait their turn.  There was the inevitability that each turn would come as we moved around the circle.  No one who wanted to speak was left out.  

In viewing the art work in the exhibition, my mind moved even farther.  Perhaps our stories are not authentic unless they include the connections to all of life, to All Our Relations.  Perhaps the narrative of isolation is always a false narrative and our true story is only evident when it is told as part of the whole.  Perhaps each one's story needs to be heard and held within a circle to truly live.  Perhaps this is the new story. 

This is the painting that I entered.  Here is the story that went with it:  

Farewell:  This is the last goodbye between our Quarter Horse Robbie and two rescued Mustang mares, Majesty and Rain who had to part under sad circumstances.  I felt so connected to these horses and they to each other and I painted this picture to deal with the grief of losing them.  The only point of view that expressed this was the impossible, invisible, intimate one of being between the mares as they are reflected in Robbie’s eye.

Carolyn G. Heilbrun (1988)Writing a Woman’s Life.  New York: