I come from a large family. There are five of us children spread over an age gap of sixteen years. My mother used the rhythm method of birth control, and as a result most of us were unplanned – not particularly wanted but not unwanted either. My older sister and I were born within a year of each other. My mom thought that because she was nursing she would not get pregnant. I was born early, ruining my older sister’s first Christmas. Each December my mom would tell me the story of how her water broke unexpectedly, when she was putting the star atop the tree, sending her to the hospital.

My mother was good with small babies, but after infancy, we pretty much raised ourselves. I left home to go to art school when I was fifteen, the year after my youngest brother was born – when my sister Christina was only five.

Christina started working as an erotic dancer when she was a teenager and continued well into her forties. I painted this portrait of her in 1994, when she was pregnant with her daughter. We tried out many poses, and I remember asking her to try a more maternal stance with no luck. Finally I went with this image: at once in control and vulnerable, she interrogates the viewer. I love the erotism of the pose, how it celebrates her comfort with her body, her career choice, and her choice to become a mother.

In his essay “The Rustle of Painting,” Barry Schwabsky wrote:

“ .... the painting being hung at its usual level, our gaze is met not by the woman’s eye, but rather by her nipple. In fact, our impression might be that her gaze occurs through the nipple, that she looks at us with her nipple. Further contemplation of the painting reveals this as a ruse, however. The nipple is, so to speak, a fetish this woman projects as bait for our gaze, but her face reveals the vulnerability of one who imagines that her subterfuge will be easily discovered. She is studying the viewer, as it were, from behind the nipple.”

I am a single parent by choice. I have one daughter. She was born in 2000, a time when my career was established and I felt that I could raise a child well. At one point, my mom said that she envied my relationship with my daughter because we have a bond that she did not have with her children.

Christina 2 was an early exploration of my feelings on motherhood, choice, and career. In another astute comment on the painting, Schwabsky wrote: “The woman who posed for this painting is posed as she is because she is doing what an artist does.... In any case, we ‘lay down our gaze’ on the artist’s self-portrait as her own sister.”

Brenda has generously donated two posters to the show. 100% of the proceeds for the first one sold will go to PPSNE. The second will be split 50/50 with PPSNE.