In 1962, when the artist Mary Husted was 17, she fell pregnant with her son, Luke. She wasn’t married to the father and, because it wasn’t considered socially acceptable for her to raise the child on her own, she was forced to give him up for adoption just 10 days after his birth. To hold on to his memory, she sketched him every day: capturing every eyelash and wisp of his hair; how he slept and imprinted his head on to his pillow. “They were all I would have of him,” she told me.
Nearly 30 years later, Husted – by now twice married and with a grown-up family of her own – returned to the drawings to inspire her 1991 painting, Dreams, Oracles, Icons, a golden collage of a newborn in the foetal position in a nest beside a mother clutching a bird. Husted entered the painting into the Women’s Art Collection at Murray Edwards College, Cambridge – home to the largest collection of art by women in Europe. It would be for the public, for mothers who might relate to her situation, and, who knows, “out there if he [Luke] was ever looking for me”.
In 2007, adoption laws changed. Luke was searching for his mother and found her via the college’s website. Mother and son have been in daily contact ever since.
I first heard Husted’s story at the Real Families exhibition in Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam Museum, which was curated by a family psychologist, Susan Golombok. When I recently took to sharing it on my Instagram, the comments and messages staggered me. People wrote so deeply about how seen and understood the drawings made them feel. Those who had been adoptedsaid that Husted’s story had made them re-evaluate the narrative they’d always told themselves: about feeling unwanted from birth. Some were inspired to reach out.
Seeing this made me realise the invisibility of so many stories, especially those centred on women and motherhood. But it also showed me the power of art as a global language: an effective tool that can speak to anyone and make its viewer feel seen. Making something, even if it is just for yourself, can be a way to lift your voice – especially when it feels like society is against you – and promote the visibility of marginalised communities.
This week I spoke to members of the Mujeres con Capacidad Sololá (“Women With Ability”), a Guatemala-based organisation set up in 2018 to empower women and girls with disabilities. Their music, theatre, visual art and storytelling projects allow them to express themselves, create something positive and, as one member told me, “help us understand people’s experiences”.
They call it “Artivism” – art as activism and resistance, to make visible the struggles and barriers that women face day to day. “There are specific identities that are not being represented in the media, so it’s important that we represent them in a dignified way – and that the women themselves are part of the process of creation.” They work together to make “collective pictures” because, as they tell me “all of us are going through the same thing”. Currently on show at the organisation is a gallery of portraits painted in pinks, yellows and blues.
Recently, the centre published another edition of its comic Guardians of Diversity, made up of information collected from members’ real-life stories. It is teeming with vibrant images and text, recalling everyday scenarios for women with disabilities, from being in a wheelchair to having a hearing impairment. Reading these stories, the members tell me, fills them with pride.
But the comic also helps on a practical level, as its stories draw from their day-to-day life experiences. One member told me that when she began her menstruation cycle, she didn’t know what was happening to her. “No one told me about it. I thought I was going to die, I didn’t know it happened.” The comic has helped her feel informed about her body: “These are our own stories, and the stories that we have lived as women with disabilities.”
Art – whether looking at it or making it yourself – is a tool to tell stories that are so often hidden from view. Whether the work is for yourself, your community or a gallery wall, the process of making art can be a form of empowerment. In the case of Husted, it gave her autonomy when society deemed she had none. For the Mujeres con Capacidad Sololá, it provides beautiful and practical information that makes people feel seen. In a world that can silence women, it is important that we feel confident to tell our stories. You never know who might see the work, or what it might inspire you to do.
