Issue 40: Our Lady of the Thaw | by Marina Gross-Hoy
“Is it time to talk about stopping?” She is watching you quietly, waiting for your answer. Her question is a betrayal. She is supposed to be midwifing you safely to the other end, not making you...
Our Lady of the Thaw by Marina Gross-Hoy
Tell me there's a garden where my flowers will grow
Maybe then all my starting will keep going, oh
I hope so
— “Tell Me There's a Garden,” Joseph
“I’m going to ask you this gently and I want you to tell me how it lands.” The formality of her phrasing is making you nervous.
“Ok.”
“I’m wondering if you’ve reached the point where continuing the PhD is causing you too much harm. Is it time to talk about stopping?”
*
Let me tell you about the statue.
It is small and unimpressive, with pockmarked wood and chipped paint. If you don’t have a thing for Saint Anne imagery, your eyes would skip right over it, feasting instead on more dramatic sculptures like the weeping Virgin and Saint John in agony, blue trails of tears streaming down their devastated cheeks.
But you do have a thing for Saint Anne imagery.
You statue yourself in front of the minimal display case, beyond the flow of Saturday morning museum visitors making their way to the more obviously spectacular The Lady and the Unicorn tapestries. Mother and Child are so small you could hold them in the palm of your hand. Mother Mary sits straight-backed as she holds the chubby Baby Jesus in her lap, her hands wrapped around his tummy, a glazed over expression on her face that reminds you of your own postpartum fog….
Read more from Our Lady of the Thaw.
Marina Gross-Hoy is a scholar, writer, and speaker who lives in the Eastern Townships of Québec. She is completing a Museum Studies PhD dissertation at the Université du Québec à Montréal on the development of digital interpretation projects for visitors. She holds degrees in History of Art from the University of Michigan and muséologie from the École du Louvre in Paris. Marina writes about playing with new ways of paying attention to embodied experience. By subverting the gaze honed through looking at art in museums and turning it onto the ordinary and natural world, her essays explore how engaging with life through this 'museum gaze' can open us up to wonder, compassion, and empowerment.
Issue 40 Highlights
Issue 40: Force of Nature by Michael Nagle | Artwork by Kirk Read
Issue 40: Our Lady of the Thaw by Marina Gross-Hoy
Issue 40: Yes, I talk shit. by nawa angel a.h.
Issue 40: sporadically present by Featured Artist S.J.
Issue 40: everyday awe by Mayur Chauhan
Issue 40: Momma's Love Itch by Featured Writer Elizabeth Woody
Artists and Writers
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Oh my goodness. This is beautiful.
Thank you.
Loved this piece.