Home Education

When you are an expecting or new mother, people always feel the need to tell you how your life is going to change.

“Get ready! Store up your sleep now!”

Of course, I had an idea my life would change when I became a mother, a general sense that I would have more responsibility and less personal freedom. Obviously there would be sleep deprivation at times. What I wasn’t prepared for, and no one told me, was the volume level of my life would be turned up, never to go back down again. Similarly, the frenetic activity around me would feel constant—twirling, singing, jumping, climbing, touching… My nervous system was simply not equipped for these changes.

I recently spoke to a group of young mothers about dealing with anger. It’s amazing: every mom I know experiences a new kind of anger with their own children, yet each mother is surprised by it! No matter how deeply we adore our children, we are often not prepared to regulate our own nervous systems when suddenly faced with the unregulated or unexpected behavior of our children.

Out of this experience came my print, “Home Education.” When I got to the stage of having three children, ranging from newborn to six, I felt overwhelmed by the feeling of chaos and energy in our home—and I was homeschooling! During that season of being at home all day with my children, I discovered I had not developed important habits of discipline and order in my own life and in our home. I came to the end of myself. My children were holding a mirror up to me, showing me my lack of self-control, patience, and duty, and it was not a pretty sight! Simply put, I realized I was the problem. It wasn’t my children’s behavior, level of energy, or unregulated nervous systems—it was my own, and I had to take responsibility in my own attitudes and actions.

In this way, having children and being at home with them was my education, teaching me how to step into self-responsibility in my health, emotions, and beliefs. With God’s help, through the deep conviction of the Holy Spirit, I began to see my children through totally different, gentle and grace-filled eyes. The title of the print is a pun on homeschooling, but it really speaks to my internal learning process. It is also nod to the philosophy of Charlotte Mason, the Victorian-era educational philosopher in Britain, whose ideas helped reshape my parenting, beginning in our time homeschooling. I highly recommend reading her volume by the same name, “Home Education”.

When I look at this print, I see myself, lying in the yard while my children do headstands and climb in windows. (There was a phase when one of my daughters did headstands more than she was on her feet. I once turned around to find her doing a headstand in a shopping cart.) Am I exhausted and discouraged, or am I taking a minute to breathe deeply and ground myself in the cool grass while we take a break from reading? At one time, the answer would have been the former, but thanks be to God and my children, I can say it’s now more often the latter. Children will teach us, if we let them.

“Home Education” is a limited edition reduction linoleum print. For each color, the block is successively carved away and printed, so all four layers were printed from the same original linoleum block. Once this limited edition of 55 is sold out, that’s it forever!

Collect this print or share it with a parent you love!

Columbia Tribune Article on Sager Braudis Gallery Exhibit

Amy Wilder of the Columbia Daily Tribune wrote a review of the 2015 Autumn Exhibit at Sager Braudis Gallery. Click HERE to read the full article. Below is an excerpt from the article discussing my work.

... Kim Morski combines image and text with context and meaningful materials into dark narratives with humorous undercurrents. While Sleadd’s imagery evolves out of a place of dreams and storytelling, Morski’s storytelling evokes historic events, particularly centered in St. Louis, where her parents grew up and where she spent years studying printmaking at Washington University.

 

Before leaving St. Louis several years ago, Morski came across the dissertation of Lisa Martino-Taylor, a doctoral candidate at the University of Missouri-Columbia, whose research centered on military-sponsored research conducted in impoverished areas of St. Louis during the Cold War era of the last century. Martino-Taylor obtained declassified documents outlining the extent of these tests, which involved the spraying of zinc cadmium sulfide, possibly irradiated, into the Carr Square neighborhood and the Pruett-Igoe housing complex in particular.

 

“I have actually met Lisa since I started making my work, and she was actually at the opening for this show,” Morski said in a phone interview. “A lot of this work started after I read her dissertation. ... It definitely hit close to home.”

 

There’s a cynical bent to her imagery and the narrative thread of her work, coupled with gorgeously executed craftsmanship and artful wordplay. In “Nation Wide Cover Age,” a relief carving on a headboard Morski said she turned into art because she couldn’t bear to part with it, the arched white surface has been carved with floral motifs and words.

 

Morski takes up a relatively small amount of gallery real estate, but her work counterbalances the physical space with volumes of meaning and impact. She is primarily a printmaker, but sculptural work is also included, objects that reflect the culture of St. Louis and imagery in her prints, like carved, painted wooden bricks straight out of one of her prints.

 

She takes up the banner of previous generations’ artists who have become political/satirical cartoonists and graphic artists. It’s important to remember that the cartoon is not simply a childish medium but has a long history rooted in charged graphic imagery, like that of Honoré Daumier.

 

Morski hesitates to claim she is casting judgments on the events that inspired her work, saying she is more interested in examining the cultural impact and the role of people on both sides of the issue.

 

 

“It really hit home for me, thinking about my own family members being affected,” she said. “Or possibly being people who were involved. That’s what struck me: this idea of everyday people being part of this larger strategy that they’re not fully aware of.”