MARYLAND: The Mediator

If you grew up like I did, you knew that open glasses of clear liquid and ice rarely contained water.

You knew that when one parent typically had a problem, and the other did their best to avoid it. Maybe you got caught in between their spats from time to time.

I was rarely the target of the rage. But I often found myself mediating between them in order to maintain whatever sanity I had as a child. I found myself manipulating outcomes to avoid conflict. Maybe not surprisingly, I moved away as soon as I possibly could.

So when I returned to that maelstrom as an adult, thinking I would be spending time with my parents to gather information to make art about my adolescence, I was shocked to find myself subconsciously slipping back into those old patterns of mediation.

All these years later and my body so viscerally knew how to levy feelings to avoid pain. What a sight.

In The Mediator, a multi-framed self portrait, my eyes move from side to side surveying the scene. What will happen next? Am I safe here? What do I need to say to make all of this better?

I have always played the mediator. Child that I was, lacking boundaries I knew no other way.