Roberta Condon

A Hollow-Boned Muse

I grew up in a mid-century modern home with large picture windows facing the Fox River in Illinois. My mother was OCD about housecleaning and felt everything had its place and should be in it. She made two exceptions to the rule and allowed certain disorders: an unmowed patch of lawn with rare wildflowers in the yard and a pair of binoculars coupled with a bird identification book that stayed on the dining room table. My unruly personality and I were another disorder she tolerated.
Growing up with a love of all things that flew and floated past on the river it was only natural they would appear in a series of work one day.
I was angry when I started this series. My fellow sexagenarians and I have been protesting; we’ve been fighting for changes of the same social issues for fifty-some odd years only to see the country taking steps backwards. My desire is to find and provide respite from and for the world—to create images that people can become lost in. My desire is to find a place for myself to rest, and quit fighting; I don’t want to fight anymore.
Artist and poet Tricia Hersey in her “Nap Ministry” states that “rest is resistance” and that “we don’t want a place at the table. The table is full of our oppressors. We are tired. We want a pillow and a blanket, and we want to rest.”
And I agree.
Painting this series has calmed me. I have been quieted by the quails and eased by the egrets.