Selections presented are part of, As I Sit Waiting, a series of sculptures and films that honor the true stories of people in America accessing abortion healthcare. Recently, four films in the series were removed from a college exhibition in Idaho, subsequently making national headlines. The college cited, ‘No Public Funds for Abortion Act,’ a gag order preventing public funded employees to ‘promote’ or ‘counsel in favor of abortion.’ It’s an honor to show works here in Cincinnati and be supported.
LYMARIZ
Florida, 1997
Lymariz felt great about her life. Young and in her first semester of art school she knew that a pregnancy would offset any visions she had for herself. After her abortion though, she felt despair. The abortion brought up many core wounds for Lymariz. She didn’t confront them for another twenty years. Now she owns her own business as a life coach for women.
Lymariz, acrylic, glass beads, polyurethane, resin, rubber, 10.25” x 28” x 25”, 2022.
It was you know it was a difficult amount for me at that moment. I think it was six hundred dollars. I was just starting college. I had no funds, so after speaking to the father he mentioned that he would come to be supportive and actually pay for it, which was great. However, because of how he reacted initially, one of the girls I had met in moving into my school dorm said I'm gonna have it for you in case he doesn't come through. He came and he didn't have the funds. She was the one that rescued me. She was my angel in that moment and she supplied the funds for the abortion.
TAMEKA
Tameka knew her partner was harmful and so when she got pregnant again she also knew an abortion in secret was her safest option. A couple years later her partner coerced her; which later developed into an unwanted ectopic pregnancy. The doctors said it was nothing, de-centering her care and almost killing her.
Michigan, 2004, 2014
Tameka, acrylic, acrylic latex, brass, resin, polyurethane, wood, 21” x 18” x 45”, 2022.
I almost died. I knew something was wrong and called an ambulance. At the hospital they rolled me in and parked me in the corner - internally bleeding - for close to an hour. I called out to the nurse who was passing by; I said ‘my blood pressure is dropping’ … everybody started running around and I'm speeding down the hallway. Very scary…the fact that I had laid there in the corner for an hour just bleeding because it’s just abdominal pain. I know way too many families who lost mothers, sisters, cousins, friends, daughters because [doctors] do not listen to us. They don't believe our pain. It’s a myth that Black people don't feel pain which is deeply rooted in slavery. They almost took me away from my children.
TEMPERANCE
Arizona, 2012
Temperance was in the navy when they found out they were pregnant. Knowing their career was an important part of their life journey, they opted for an abortion.
I am non-binary and I didn’t realize until after I had gotten out of the Navy. Looking back, I realized that many things [in the Navy] were actually medicinal for me because I didn’t grow up with the energy of masculinity in my family or life. There was never the little boy stimulated in me as I grew up. There was never the teenage boy that got to live. And so the Navy felt like the first time I could be like, oh, I don’t have to be a chick. It just felt so free. My main thought was, okay, I may not know how I feel, I may not know what to do, but when I joined the Navy I took an oath that the Navy would come first. And I knew that if I had a baby, the baby would always come first. And I was like, I can’t have two conflicting number ones because one is a legal obligation and then one is a moral obligation.
Temperance, acrylic, latex tubing, metal, plaster, resin, wood, 20” x 25.5” x 35”, 2021.
You started the work for As I Sit Waiting over a year ago. What was the key moment that inspired you to take on the subject of the global fight for abortion rights?
It was several years ago. I had become pregnant and found myself sitting at a Planned Parenthood in Manhattan, waiting to get abortion pills. The seats were ancient, it was cold, the colors on the wall were repulsive, and blaring incongruously from the TV was “Say Yes To The Dress.” My temper was beginning to flare, and my anxiety was high enough to shatter the vial of blood drawn to confirm my pregnancy.
The waiting rooms of reproductive health clinics are a space of transience. I started thinking about all the chairs, the wood, the threadbare cushions. And about all the people who had come here for an abortion, those who came before me, those who would come after, and those with me at that moment.
These memories became “Sonogram,” later changed to “Lydia,” the first sculpture in the series (each sculpture is now named after the person I interviewed). I had no studio at the time, but the idea for the sculpture was so compelling and persistent that I ended up making it right there in my bedroom.
It was cathartic. I had transformed something sad into something outside of myself. I knew my story was important, but at the same time, I realized how easy it was for me to get an abortion. I was pregnant, and then within 48 hours, I was not.
At the same time I was impacted by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: “The danger of a single story.” My story was not the defining experience for all people who needed an abortion. And so my mind started thinking back to that waiting room. What would it be like to have an entire waiting room of sculptures honoring different stories and people? Powerful. Moving.
(excerpt from A Woman’s Thing magazine)