interview

Archangel Azrael, the angel of grief . Watercolor, 4"x6", 2012.

When Lindsay over at Murmur of Wings asked me to answer a few questions about my art, my heart center just opened up, swallowed the time and length it took. Grief and art and my spiritual journey...wow. Apparently, I am very wordy about it. But I am passionate about the ways in which grief opened me up to release self-doubt and just go for art, and I want to inspire other grieving people (not just babylost, but anyone suffering from grief of any kind) to allow grief to be that starting point of compassion, and release, and connection. So, go on over to Murmur of Wings, and read my interview. If you leave a comment, you can win a mizuko jizo altar painting. And if you are really interested in amazing jewelry, check out her Etsy shop the Gypsy Rebel. Personally, I wear a piece of Lindsay's jewelry every day of my life. I actually created a few with her which are absolutely amazing. Anyway, all in all, she's an amazing person to connect to, and leave a comment to introduce yourself, and win some art. YAY!

glow and etsy

Yesterday, I was up to post over at Glow in the Woods. I wrote finding lost things and losing things I thought I found. I talked about cleaning out my basement, getting rid of all my maternity and baby clothes. I admit, I kept one wee box of super cute clothes for my "grandchildren." Yeah. And I talk about the Fibonacci sequence and finding a little broken snail shell that reminded me of my insides. It made sense at the time. Go over and join the conversation.

Also, I decided to begin creating and selling art again. My sister and I closed our shop the Kenna Twins earlier this year. We both found it difficult to maintain our custom orders in the midst of every day life. Mainly, I stopped so I could write a novel, except I never did quite get to the novel, yet I continued to fill my time with other shit that was not as spiritually fulfilling. Art is my passion, my spirituality, my touch of the Divine. I meditate and create, so I lost a bit of meditation on a day to day basis. So, after talking to my twin, thinking it over, consulting psychic and spiritual advisors, and then meditating a great deal, I decided to open my shop with the focus on sacred symbols, images, and meditation paintings. Everything in that shop is spiritual in one way or another. I have been focused in the last few months on linocut block printing, and I did a series on the elements--air, fire, water, and earth. Anyway, I am selling a ton of greeting cards, prints, original paintings of mizuko jizo and meditating mamas still. And in the next few months, I will be adding saint paintings, ex-votos, Day of the Dead altar paintings...slowly they will be added. ANYWAY, here is the link to my shop. 

angie yingst studios on Etsy.

You can like me at angie yingst studios on Facebook.

For my opening days, I am offering free shipping to all my blog readers. Use the code: stilllife. 

Love you all. xo

still standing

After Lucia died, I had no idea what to do with all this grief energy. I wanted to run out of my skin. I wanted to shave my head. I wanted a uniform. I wanted...something.

I wrote. The first thing I wrote was her birth story. I tweeked it and edited it. For weeks. That seemed like the whole story of my daughter. She died. She was born. The inverse of normal events. I was writing to try to find Lucia in the story of the only time I held her. I focused on the details of her. She was six pounds, nineteen inches. That was her. She was black-haired. That was her. She was dead. That was her.

None of those things were her.

After a few weeks, I began painting and then my feelings came back slowly. I could feel everything. It  was as though I decorated the numb over me with still lifes. Art dissolved the shell of me. Painting made me want more art. I wanted to feel. Because the feeling of grief became her. It was love. Overwhelming love caused overwhelming grief. In the quiet of art, I found Lucia. She was like a prayer and a hope and a whisper and a beautiful thing you cannot hold.

Art became a huge part of my grief journey. It lay a path in front of me that I never imagined possible. I began painting mizuko jizo in the ritual I so desperately craved. In that ritual, she was there. I began painting for other grieving people. I created still life 365. In 2010, I dedicated all my time and energy to still life 365. I published a piece of art, craft, music, painting, poetry, film, collage, sewing...anything created by hands that held their child and wept. I published every day of the year. Sometimes twice a day. That is how much love this community has.

Through the last two years, I have focused more of my attention on my writing. As grief's desperate claws loosened its grip on the back of my neck, I have written less about grief. But it is still there like a low hum on my life. And I don't mind it. She existed and I am better for having known her, for grieving her. I have closed down my Etsy shop to focus on writing. I have stopped publishing at still life 365. And I miss art and creativity and being enmeshed in the community of artists I still consider my closest friends.

Franchesca from Small Bird Studios emailed me a few weeks ago. She asked me to be a quarterly contributor at her new magazine Still Standing.  I had seen so many amazing women in our community posting about their writing and contributions that I immediately said OF COURSE!! Still Standing is an online magazine for parents who have lost a child, or suffer from infertility. It is a magazine about hope and healing.

What will I be writing about?

Art. Community. I will be presenting art workshops by video. Or prompting the community to write on their own blogs, like the Spoken Word Prompt. I will be interviewing other artists, like the Artist to Artist conversations on still life 365, publishing podcasts. When Franchesca asked me to participate here, she could have no idea how soul-satisfying that would be to me, or how very much I had missed the community of grieving artists and parents who create, how much I need to be doing this kind of writing and work too.

Art is magic. Art is healing. Art is peace. Art is the glowing stone that everyone gathers around to watch. Art is language. Art is love. Art is joy. Art is my philosophy. Art is community. Art is something special. Art is earth, wind, fire, and water. And my only goal at Still Standing is to share that magic with everyone.

Still Standing launches on May 5th. Until then, you can sign up for the magazine here.
Join Still Standing on Facebook here

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In honor of Still Standing, International Bereaved Mother's Day, and writing about art and community, I am offering a handpainted custom mizuko jizo painting to one commenter today. You can ask for a handpainted 5"x7" watercolor greeting card. This is a great way to let someone in this community know you are thinking about them, or honor them on International Bereaved Mother's Day. Or you can ask for a 4"x6" painting for your own altar, or area in your house you have designated for your child or children. Or you can gift that to someone too. You can read more about my artwork and process here. I have a description of mizuko jizo here. 


If you are sick of mizuko jizo, I am working on  linoleum block prints. Or needlefelted objects. Or an enso meditation. If you are familiar with my work, you might have something screaming out to you that you want one of. Just ask here in the comments. My daily artwork is at still life everyday.

about my artwork.

Today, I am honored to be guest posting over at Faces of Loss, Faces of Hope for their January create. heal inspire. series on creativity and grief. January is International Creativity Month. I am also giving away a mizuko jizo painting over there. So go over there. Comment. Win something. Actually, check out the whole series, because it is beautifully done, like everything at FOL/FOH. Beryl has done an amazing job organizing this month of creative mamas.

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Now, a few words about my art in general. A few weeks ago, I mentioned closing my Etsy Shop so I can focus on my writing. I said it in this general, oh-maybe-soon-I-will way. In lieu of a few requests and comments from people, I thought I would take a few weeks before closing shop to offer custom work to grieving people as well as sell the work I have around the studio. I will be open to do custom mizuko jizo paintings for the next two weeks. I am aiming to be done around Valentine's Day, but will stay open longer if I get a ton of requests. I am putting aside writing to offer this to the grieving parents that I love, because I noticed a few parents favorited my shop on Etsy and the custom listing, and I didn't want you to be surprised if you went back and the gypsy caravan has packed up and the carnival left town.

Mizuko jizos hanging across my studio
for Intl Kindness Project Day

I have explained what mizuko jizos are on this blog before, and tonglen meditation. My painting process is part of my spiritual practice, as many of you know. Tonglen mediation is a meditation where you connect with suffering--your own suffering and the suffering of others. You breathe in the suffering, and breath out relief, happiness, joy, compassion to the suffering. The idea is to carry the burden, lessen others suffering. It is slightly oppressive and uncomfortable to carry suffering, to feel pain of others' situations and grief, but also very healing. In the end, it helps you become comfortable around suffering and dissipate the fear of your own suffering. Because I lost a child, I tap into the early grief energy, the rawness of it, and touch that. When I do custom work, I focus on that individual family, or mother/father, and send a kind of grounding to the family. I also keep that child's name as a mantra in my mind, as well as Lucy's name. Then I paint, in a quiet studio, alone, with a candle for the babies and incense. When I do a large, general painting session, I meditate for grieving parents as a general group. And paint many paintings at the same time.

Greeting cards after a tonglen session..

I have been doing this type of meditation painting for three years now. Well, almost three years. After Lucia's death. Everything converged for me in the late spring after her death when I began painting mizuko jizo for my own Lucia's mizuko kuyo, or ritual for remembrance. Around the same time, I saw my Buddhist therapist who was helping me relearn meditation after her death. I was having trouble sitting still, and he gave me some amazing meditation techniques. It was during one of our meditation sessions that he taught me tonglen, and said that my connecting with other women on-line sounded like tonglen. I had never heard of it, and was intrigued. Helping others always helped me cope with suffering. I bought Pema Chodron's Good Medicine which is an explanation of tonglen.(Here is a quick article that explains it quite nicely.) In another session, the same therapist suggested that I think of painting as my daily meditation. He said that it is a strong legacy in Buddhist tradition to have artists who use painting as a type of working meditation.

My paintings have been integral to my daily life, just as meditation has been. To let it go feels scary and important. For me, the daily Etsy demand is very low. But when it comes, it requires me to drop my current deadlines and work, then focus on painting. Particularly because the payment is up front, so I feel I must meet the two day turnaround I promise. And yet, I have to say, painting for grieving parents and grandparents has opened up a new, beautiful, spiritual world to me, and gave me a spiritual grounding and center that felt like the missing link in my life for a long long time before Lucia's death. I am forever indebted to the parents who trust me with their babies, and allow me to paint for them.

Painting, before my studio.
With bangs and pregnant with Thor.
Fall, 2009.

AND so, for the next two to three weeks, I will focus on painting, as I close this chapter, FOR NOW. I know I will continue painting, and I may paint again on Etsy after that, but I just want to set it aside for now. So, I have some paintings (4"x6" watercolors, and 5"x7" watercolor greeting cards, perfect for babylost friends for birthdays, sympathy cards or anytime cards) in my studio that I am selling for $15 a piece. Custom pieces are priced differently, and we can discuss prices. If you are interested in a custom piece, or a meditating mama, or another painting, please do not hesitate to contact me at uberangie(at)gmail(dot)com. We can work on something together for you. I also will be selling my acrylic pieces that appeared in the show five. in Lancaster, PA, this month.

From five.

I have decided that on July 27th, as part of MISS Foundation's International Kindness Project, I will do a large meditation session and paint 4"x 6" mizuko jizos to give away to grieving families. Last year, I painted 28 jizos for grieving families. I offer that through the comment section of this blog, the comment section at MISS Foundation, and on my Facebook page. (Angie Kenna Yingst.) That won't happen until July, though.


Thank you all for the support and love you have given to my painting and work. It has meant the world.

question eleven. creativity

Sara: You do a lot of creative stuff. How/when do you get it done with two little kids around? 

Hope's Mama: How do you find the time and motivation to keep up with all you do, especially online. You maintain a handful of blogs, all very well, and you post very frequently. And when you are posting, you're often talking about all the things you're doing when you're not online - crafting, cooking etc etc! Just wonder how on earth you fit it all in, and do you ever get any time just for you? How does Angie unwind and rejuvenate herself? xo 

Great questions, Sara and Sally. Thank you for asking them.

The most basic answer I can give is that I just do it. One thing I have learned in the last few years is to simply prioritize creativity. I have woven art and writing into the fabric of our daily life. I prioritize it with my kids and I prioritize it alone. So when I start making commitments for our family, I definitely think art or writing as part of our schedule. And I have to say that art and writing also means that I prioritize me and my mental health, because I also unwind and rejuvenate with art and writing. That is something that used to feel selfish, but now I see as a vital part of my mental well-being. That is a huge change in who I was--to do something solely for the sake of doing it without regard for being paid--I used to judge my worth on how much money I made.

I am incredibly fortunate to be married to someone who supports my art and writing habits in any way he can. He also works forty-four hours a week in three days--one twenty-four hour shift and two ten hour shifts. It affords us lots of time together as a family and gives me the space to do art and writing. In those forty-four hours of him being at work, I try to be really present with the kids. But when my husband gets home, he also wants to spend time with them, bonding and doing the stuff he loves with them --wrestling, building forts, running, climbing high things, hanging from the ceiling and flipping around. So, he likes the hour or two alone with them if I work where I am not freaking out and telling him they are going to break their necks.

Less formal, more personal art, craft or cooking for our home, I tend to do with the kids--either I set the kids up with a creative project of their own, or get them involved in some way. That took a lot of discipline for me, because I am impatient. But now, I am used to kid-pace and I like it. They slow me down and that is good. When I have jizos and do meditation paintings or something from my Etsy shop, I wait for Sam to be home and take the time to close the door and not answer the phone. I cannot do meditation paintings with the kids coming in every few minutes. In general, I would say that it is a mix between formal, set-aside art time and just doing art and writing whenever I can. When I add it up at the end of the week, generally, it is quite a bit of time.

I always want to be writing or painting. Usually both. It is a constant gnawing at me. If I could sit at the computer and write from the time I wake until I go to bed, I would. I write sentences, ideas, phrases, paragraphs throughout the day. I am always thinking about art and writing, so I have about fifteen windows open on my computer at any given time. When something hits me, I go back into the office, wake the computer and just add those lines to the file I am working on. I also have a few files on my smart phone and write ideas on there. So, I have a ton of three line pieces in my "In Progress" file that may or may not become something some day.

Creativity--art and writing--brought me a peace. It was a way of being right in the moment in a way that was absolutely impossible for me after Lucy died. It was like meditation. Hell, it was meditation. It still is meditation for me. Meditation for the addled, grief-fried brain who cannot sit still. Others find their thing--knitting, baking, running...that is why I set up still life 365, because I knew other grief-stricken parents were doing something too, something for a moment of peace, and I found their moment beautiful.

That was probably too much information, but suffice to say, I have alone time to do art, blogging, writing, crafts, which is important. I am motivated to do it, because it brings me such a sense of wholeness and calm. When the kids go to sleep, I write. I don't always want to, but I know if I start, I will get into a zone. I believe in my writing in a way that I never did before. Not that I am a great writer, but that something will be discovered if I write. The best thing I did for my creativity was the Creative Every Day project and still life 365, which I did through 2010. It gave me the discipline for writing and art that I was lacking. It transformed my thinking about virtually every aspect my life. And kept me accountable every day. Now, I don't need that project to do something creative every day. It just is part of my schedule and my life and my children's lives. Last year, I also did NaNoWriMo, and wrote a novel in a month. That experience was difficult some days, but mostly, it was like every other day of my life. I write, write, write.

Anyway, you asked me HOW I do it. How I did it was firstly by setting up a daily art time with Beezus after Lucia died. I wrote it down on a piece of paper. It was part of a whole day schedule after Lucy died, because I had no idea what the fuck I was going to do with Beezus when Sam went back to work. I was a wreck. How am I going to take care of a little twenty-one month old baby when I can't stop crying? I tell this story a lot, because it changed my life. I just penciled in a time every day that we painted. Actually, I made a whole schedule for my day, that is how I thought I would survive. It said:

8am-Brush teeth. 
8:15am-Get dressed. (Then fill in lots of daily chores.)
1pm--Art time.

Then, I bought a book on how to paint still life with watercolor, and did the lessons. Because I thought maybe taking a painting class would be good, even though I didn't want to be around people. I had been painting since I was a kid, but I had wanted to pick it up again for years. I gave Bea washable paints, and just didn't correct her work, or if she painted on the wall. I just let her paint, and I just painted. We listened to Tegan and Sara or Bjork. It took almost no time for me to begin painting about my grief. Now, I have integrated art and writing into my life more or less daily.

Sally asked me what other things I do to unwind and rejuvenate. I play guitar. I read. I like to read books with other people and talk about them, or just read them. I would join a book club in a heartbeat. I like literary fiction, mostly and memoirs. This summer, I have read the Paris Wife, State of Wonder, the Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, Fearless, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, Mummy Knew, Dead Reckoning, Mommy Doesn't Drink Here Anymore and I am currently reading the Magician King. I also love playing Scrabble, or doing crossword puzzles. When I get a free fifteen minutes, I do a crossword while sitting in the really hot bath. I also am really dedicated to my sobriety right now, so I hit meetings most days of the week, call other women in recovery. I sponsor a woman. This weekend, I am going on a spiritual retreat for other women in recovery.

In general, I just be. Part of what I love about being a stay-at-home mother is the freedom to do all of this. I don't take it for granted, so I really try to utilize my time in creative, soul-satisfying ways. I will have to do back to work soon, so I am trying to get all the writing I want done before that point, because I just don't think I will have time to do it. I also love just being with my kids. We paint for a little. We talk. I play guitar and they sing. They draw. I write a blog post. We color. (I love coloring.) It feels busy and very relaxed. Relaxed is the crux of it. Basically, I find my life to be extraordinary in its ordinariness. Art and writing have a lot to do with that.

A Museum of Flowers

As we walked around the lake near my house, my sister-in-law said, "They really ought to have museums with only beautiful pictures of flowers and landscapes." I told her about the painting of Rachel Weeping and how I began to weep in the museum the other day. She was there too, of course. She said, "I was afraid you had seen it." She was good to talk to. She listened, she nodded, she told me stories about women who had survived the death of their children. When she said that there should be a museum of just flower paintings, I agreed at the time. Yes, only Monet, Renoir, Pissarro. It sounded like a good plan. Only safe paintings. Only paintings that don't make babylost mamas cry. They shouldn't hang pieces like Prometheus Bound, which also hangs in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. When we saw it in the European collection, she said,"Did you see Prometheus Bound?" And I said, "Yes. I totally forgot that hung here. It is magnificent." She laughed, embarrassed, because I think she was about to say how disgusting it was. And it is hard to look at an eagle eating a man's liver. It is graphic. But it is also spectacular. Spectacularly horrific, but spectacular. Is this part of my personality that was here before? Probably. I have always loved Greek mythology, and the macabre, and well, that painting has it all.

The past few days since the museum trip, I have thought about it long and hard. Even though, I wish that we had some sort of babylost guide book, much like a morbid Lonely Planet, that warns us about paintings in museums; particularly baby-filled parks; scenes in movies that involve childbirth, miscarriage, stillbirth, cot death, death of anything innocent, young or child-like, or particularly touching scenes involving mothers and/or fathers; desperately coded songs where we might hear our own heartbreak present; and anything else likely to take our breath away, make our knees shake and send us into uncontrolled crying in front of visiting guests and strangers, I still think the painting Rachel Weeping needs to hang in the Museum of Art, even if it made me cry. I think it is desperately important for it to exist. So, I have catalogued the reasons why, as my brain is wont to do:

1. and/or A. In Peale's time, there was probably no place for men to talk of the sadness over the loss of his baby, and his wife's unhappiness. Painting it, perhaps, was his way to communicate how important and very sad this event was to him and his family. Perhaps it was his only emotional outlet. I dare say that is probably exacerbated by how prevalent stillbirth was in his time.

2. and/or B. Stillbirth and child loss is unfortunately part of our lives. To pretend we only have flowers, girls by rivers, and portraits of rich European girls in fancy dress means ignoring part of the human experience. We babylost mamas are already in the closet, must art also shield the world from our grief?

3. and/or C. Flower paintings are boring.

4.and/or D. This painting is entitled Rachel Weeping. Not Baby Lying There Dead. This painting is about our pain. This painting is about our grief. This painting is outing us in the American Collection. It is all about the Babylost Mama. About us. About Women. About all Mothers. Flowers are not about us. Flowers are about someone else, someone maybe we once were, but are no longer. Flower paintings are about pretending the world is a beautiful place. Flower painting are about pretending our babies don't die, and we are not sad. Flower paintings are for wimps.

5. and/or E. When we want to show pictures of our beautiful children in a room full of mothers who have pictures of their newborns yawning, we don't. We protect those mothers from our children, from our babies with their peeling skin, and red red lips. So, let us call this painting beautiful. Let us call this gray child cute, stunning even. Let us look for her father's nose,and her mother's lips. Let us hang Rachel Weeping front and center of the American collection, not behind a tall boy dresser. Let us think Rachel Weeping is more beautiful than a painting of flowers. And if forced to stare at painting after painting of cut flowers, let us remember that those flowers are dying too.

6.and/or F. Of the thousands of works hanging in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, there was one that I saw dealing with stillbirth. One. Rachel Weeping. I cannot even remember how many flower paintings I saw. I also can only specifically remember the contents of one, which is Van Gogh's Sunflowers, and that is simply by dint of its celebrity. Does our society repress death so much that one painting of a dead baby is too many?

7. and/or G. And the most important reason: Rachel, we will not forget your baby.

Angie Weeping

This week, we have out of town guests. Normally, I love having guests, showing everyone around this city, especially people that think that Philadelphia has no redeeming qualities. I like pointing out the history and art, the beauty of the city...I like telling those goofy Philly stories, showing them it really is a small town by walking around and running into people everywhere. Of course, it is different now. I wasn't sure I would have the energy to do it. Everyone seems a little bored with my stupid banal knowledge of the city. Perhaps I've truly lost my joie de vivre, or maybe, closer to the truth is, no one ever really enjoyed my ridiculous tour guiding.

Still, we hit the Art Museum yesterday, which is impressive without me having to do anything. Just by its mere existence. Now, I have a membership, and have gone/go quite a bit, but it has been a while since I wandered around the permanent collection. I generally go for a new show, or just head up to the Asian art section and Buddha-gawk. So, I was delighted to have an excuse to look at the European collection. The Philadelphia Art Museum has an amazingly vast collection of truly beautiful work. I was impressed with us. Go Philly.

Then, we decided to hit the American collection. I had forgotten that the Gross Clinic had become part of the permanent collection, and was excited to see the other Eakins. We walked into a room filled with quintessentially American furniture, and glassware, and I walked around. Wide-eyed, taking it in, and then BAM, there it was. Rachel Weeping. And the room began spinning, and I searched for an exit. My niece, age 7, stood next to me, and said, "Is she dead?" and I was faltering, "Yes, I think so. I have to go." And I turned around, past my family, past my husband, just saying, I need to walk, I need to walk. and the tears were streaming down my face.

I couldn't pull it together. I couldn't reign it in. I was just simply a wreck. Why didn't I notice these paintings before? Or the songs, or the poems, or the anything...how ignorant I was. I felt such a pull of two emotions. One screamed like an insane women, "Get me out of here. Get me out of here." And the other wanted to pull each person to this painting and say, "See how sad she is. This is how sad I am too." Of course, these incidents always remind of how universal this is, how very human losing my child to stillbirth is, but that doesn't make it any fucking easier. Sure, I feel very very human and very very fragile.

Yesterday was such a beautiful day, a day I have been waiting for since Lucy died, and I was a mess. When we got home, everyone wanted to head to the playground, while I just lay in bed and sobbed. It took all of my energy, all of my everything to get up when I heard them, and try to make it look like I hadn't been crying for an hour and a half. Last night, I looked up the painting on line, because I was ready to look at it. I was prepared, unlike the chance encounter we had in the American collection. And when I found the painting on a blog, it said, "Rachel Weeping, by Charles Willson Peale. Above is a painting by Charles Willson Peale of his wife Rebecca weeping over her dead little one. This painting is a poignant reminder of one of the blessings of modern life: the drastic lowering of child and infant mortality."

Fuck you, blog writer.