JENNIFER PETERS Black Mixed Media on Canvas 40 H x 60 W in. $5200 “Our stories arise from our hearts and souls. In this sense, telling our stories becomes a sacred gesture, opening a clear way to that deep, ecstatic center where we are most uniquely ourselves, individual and unique, and yet are ourselves, joined together at the heart.” Susan Wittig Albert My son Anthony Osprey died suddenly while I was nursing him in the woods near Castle River Bridge. He died on July second, 2018. His body went still, His face turned white and it was all over in a moment, a single trickle of blood streaming slowly out of his right nostril. My darling boy died right there in the woods and no amount of resuscitation would bring him back. As a mother, I was forced to make the agonizing call to halt the effort to save my boy, who had by that point been without oxygen for approximately forty five minutes. Putting down his lifeless body was not possible; I rocked him back and forth and back and forth and back and forth, seeking to quell the shrieking storm within my chest, to comfort the baby that was no longer there. He was so innocent, so beautiful, so precious - I suppose it is only fitting that my Jesus called him home, but my soul still screamed blood on that day. ‘Black’ is my way of honouring the pain of that experience; initially captured by the artist for a show on domestic violence, she then chose to keep the piece and render it fully in thick layers of paint on the canvas in her grief. It is a mother’s primal scream, a cry for help and the face of all that came before. There is life beyond child loss; there is hope for those who suffer, but the only way through the pain is through the pain.
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