This painting is my homage to a Picasso Blue Period painting entitled "La Vie". Shortly after relinquishing my daughter in February, 1969, I had my first encounter with this canvas. In this work, Picasso addresses the great themes of birth, death, and loss. I was magnetically attracted to this painting, and spent hours before it, wondering at Picasso's meaning. It was only years later that I came to appreciate the personal message this great work held for me. My lack of understanding of such a powerful piece of art, was, I believe, part of the condition of "not knowing, not seeing", a condition common in women like me, who had lost their children through forced relinquishment.

The original parents experience the overwhelming impact of irrevocable separation from their infant. At this moment, Eve cannot know or see what is happening . Adam looks to the heavens seeking mercy, and finds none.

This is a picture of the psychic and emotional rip I experienced at the time of relinquishment, resulting in a rent in my essential wholeness, and in a permanent change of psychological makeup. The dotted pattern is a visual metaphor for the automatic, protective "screening" of consciousness from the full force of the blow.....thus initiating the condition of "not knowing, not seeing". Like an image obscured by snow on a television screen, the image of the fetus is still faintly discernible. The image of the fetus has also been separated from the larger portion of the picture. This is a visual statement of psychological disassociation, which is often found in survivors of severe trauma. The searing pain of separation is painted as a flame which threatens to engulf and destroy the psyche itself.

The fact of internal divisions became stronger with the passage of time. My inner existence was stamped with the incandescent pain of loss and separation, and the utter darkness of "not knowing, not seeing".

My psyche was irrevocably marked and changed by the trauma of forced relinquishment. The pain of relinquishment acted as a lens through which I experienced external reality. Additionally, it functioned as a wall between my soul and the external world, becoming a barrier to trust in others, and to openness about the grief and loss I experienced. As a bearer of the mark, I thus suffered a painful separation from others, as well as inner divisions.

Over the course of time, the wall between me and the world grew thicker and stronger. The memory of my suffering and loss became embedded within this wall. The repression became complete...the "not knowing, not seeing" was now an ingrained part of my psychic fabric. The authority of a society powerful enough to permanently separate mothers and children, reinforced this "forgetting". The finality of my loss was experienced as a devouring of my relinquished child, and of a part of myself.

Even as the memory of the event faded into my unconscious, the pain of my loss remained alive. My secret, and my pain, were locked away in the innermost recesses of my heart.

Without warning, the return of the terror and incapacitating pain of loss would overwhelm me. This picture has been painted with jagged strokes indicative of the separation of soul from psyche. The lightbulb indicates the rush of returning memory. At these moments, the idea of a living but irrevocably lost child triggered the terror experienced during the actual relinquishment.

After years of living in a divided state of "not knowing, not seeing", life became unendurable. While I sought help to heal my condition, the "not knowing" extended even to a lack of consciousness of my own state. The long painful process of rediscovery and re-synthesis of personality began and proceeded slowly. Eventually, all the pieces were reintegrated into a whole.