Double Madonna Cry Baby Pietà

2020. Video. Runtime: 3:28.

Double Madonna

I am holding a wind-up doll of a mommy bunny holding a baby bunny. The scale of the mommy bunny to me is roughly the same as that of the baby bunny to the mommy. The mommy bunny rocks the baby, comforting it, while its musical melody “Rockabye Baby” comforts me through my own tears. The mommy bunny and I are doubles, both comforting and being comforted by each other, like two mirrors facing each other. My breasts are exposed, a symbol of fertility and motherhood, but the breasts are barren; I am infertile and can never bear children of my own. When the melody dies, I find myself assuming the pose of Michelangelo’s Pietà: the mother I will never be mourning the child I will never have.

Cry Baby

I was in the new-born nursery at the hospital while my dad sat with my mother, who was recovering after birth and enjoying a moment of peace. They heard screams down the hall: powerful, full-throated infant cries. They described it as the loudest, most ear-piercing crying they had ever heard. “At least that isn’t ours,” my dad said, and they laughed. But the cries got louder and louder until they were right outside the door. Then the nurse walked in with me. Soon my cries were cause for physical punishment, with palms, switches, and belts deployed to curb my frequent wailing. It didn’t help and I cried as much as ever, but out of fear I tried to keep it secret.

Pietà

I was crying again when my parents told me that unless I went to conversion therapy they would no longer allow me in their lives. We argued; my dad and brother began shoving and screaming at me and my mom, who had been having serious heart issues, collapsed on the floor, gasping with tears and clutching her chest. My fault, I was told. That night I hastily moved in with a friend whose address my parents didn’t know, fearful of being kidnapped or worse. As I lay in bed crying, I held my old stuffed animals, long forgotten and kept only on a whim. For weeks they were my sole source of comfort. My favorite was a delicate little bunny mommy holding a bunny baby. I’ve had it since birth and it is present in all of my earliest memories, something beautiful, soft, and gentle. It’s funny: it’s always made me cry.

Exhibition History

2020. Drive Thru Art Show, UNLV Graduate Research Studios, Las Vegas, NV.