Collaboration with Maw Shein Win as part of Maw's Broadside Project (2006) at the Headlands Center for the Arts in the summer of 2006.

girl with turtle, Poem by Maw Shein Win, Art by Megan Wilson, 2006

girl with turtle

the three year old’s bright red hair peeks out from under a knitted cap. she sits next to her young mother at the kitchen table, ankles crossed, blue eyes in awe.


her mother dips the horsehair brush into silver tins of enamel paint: turquoise, crimson, lemon yellow. she is painting the dress of another little girl onto the canvas. this girl stands on top of a turtle surrounded by clusters of poppies.


cornstalks and overalls, jack o’ lanterns and banana bread
i want to be the girl on the turtle!


she takes her mother’s lipsticks and hides them under the bed.


still there: the apple green cupboards, gingham curtains, collection of owl paintings in the hallway a black and white photograph found in the attic: a girl on a rocking horse looks directly into the camera. transfixed.


the daughter slowly moves away from the table and takes one last look at the turtle before she walks upstairs to her room.


Poem by Maw Shein Win
Art by Megan Wilson

Broadsides

Megan's Inspiration for Drawing:

The drawing that I created for Maw is taken from a combination of two paintings that my mother did when I was around 2-3 years old. 

I remember watching her as she painted them and I was disappointed that the turtle wasn't in my painting. My mother just recently gave me both of these paintings when I visited in July. I wanted to draw or redraw the image of myself through my eyes now and how I wanted it at the time. I was interested in really looking at the images and thinking about my mother and her thoughts as she painted these over thirty years ago. Doing the drawing now made me feel closer to my mother and really appreciate her work and creativity -- being an artist myself now and having a much greater perspective on who she was or might have been as a young artist. 

Introduction by Maw: 

When I arrived at the Headlands Center for the Arts for my summer 2006 residency, I realized this was the perfect time and place for me to work on one of my long-time dream projects: to complete a collection of broadsides.

I decided to collaborate with artists I already knew as well as with artists I met at the Headlands. I asked some artists to create an artwork in response to poems I had written during the residency. Then I asked the other artists to create a piece with no set theme to which I would respond with a poem. The only parameter was that the dimensions of the artwork could not exceed 6 by 6 inches.

I would like to thank Tony Foster for his help with design and production and also extend my gratitude to the Headlands
Center for the Arts for this opportunity.
-Maw Shein Win