Kristin Miller Hopkins, Untangling
Kristin Miller Hopkins (she/her)
Untangling, 2020
Watercolor, drawing, embroidery on paper
18"x24"
Untangling is a series of ink on paper drawings of ropes juxtaposed with soft watercolor washes and embroidery. Completed in the complex year of 2020, the work addresses concepts of untangling emotional knots and releasing them to the delicate washes of watercolor. The contrast provides imagery to feelings of anxiety and freedom that come from a global pandemic. As a single mother, I often feel like my maternal exhaustion normal or baseline is different than others. This year constraints of time, childcare, work / life balance untangled for everyone, which oddly helped me feel more seen. The weight of this year was so heavy that the everyday knots often produced moments of great freedom in the hilarity of their own complexity. The rope drawings provided a sense of structure to my anxiety and the washes of watercolor were hopes of releasing them to the uncertainty of our new normal.
My hope is that maternal exhaustion does not stay in the watercolor washes, but ebbs and flows out of being accepted as "the new normal." We deserve to be untangled within our own selves.
@kristinmillerhopkins