BECOMING : The Transition from Childhood to Womanhood

BLAIR TREUER

“BECOMING”: The Transition from Childhood to Womanhood, is a fantastical story that celebrates my 13 year old daughter’s journey and ceremonial right of passage into womanhood, and thus into her power. Important revelations in this series involve but are not limited to the following themes: Our relationships to the natural world and the relevance of imagination. Cultural views, attitudes, and communication regarding the physical transitions of the female body, definitions of womanhood and attitudes towards femininity, and ultimately the teachings we share with our daughters about what it means to have a female body and how to protect it and how to celebrate it in today’s society. 

With this body of work, I was captivated by the ceremonial rite of passage my daughter went through as a Native American when she got her “Moon”, her first menstrual period. It was celebrated as sacred. She…was celebrated as sacred. She was recognized, validated, and empowered. Because of this experience, my daughter understands that she has power as a woman. Not just the power to give life through her womb but the power to have influence and agency. And she recognizes that she has the responsibility to play an active role regarding the health and safety of the community. She understands how important it is to be thoughtful and intentional about her impact. She has respect for her body, and demands that others respect it too. Empowerment, validation and celebration, that was not how I or any woman I know experienced their first menstrual period. Instead for most of us, this experience is often negative and embarrassing. Imagine the impact it would have if everyone this age received this kind of validation and empowerment. 

As an educator, culture-bearer, spiritual leader and activist for the Ojibwe people, bearing witness to my husbands work and its impact on our children was like my “third eye” being opened. My portraits depict what I now see. Though this work is an entirely fantastical story, what my daughters transition showed me, is that there are healthier ways to honor this important part of a young persons life. As a white woman, I am incredibly grateful that my daughter’s Native American culture gave her such a beautiful and meaningful experience. This exhibition is about the powerful impact her experience had on me as her mother, and what it showed me about my own cultural experiences. Using this completely imaginative story and imagery, my intention with these portraits is to inspire more intentional and meaningful cultivation of healthy cultural norms and experiences around valuing our bodies, especially with regard to how we express these values to our children.

This body of work is a celebration and validation of the feminine in all its forms and in all genders. Nurturance, sensitivity, supportiveness, gentleness, warmth, cooperativeness, expressiveness, humility, empathy, affection, decoration, and/or being emotional, kind, helpful, devoted, and understanding are all traits which have been cited as stereotypically feminine. Some have suggested that feminine traits are contrived and enforced by the patriarchy which interprets these characteristics only as husband-and-child-focused rather than community or globally focused, thus reinforcing the domesticity of the feminine and ignoring and demeaning the value of feminine leadership styles. This collection of portraits expresses and celebrates the value of femininity, its relevance to the health and wellbeing of a society, and it elevates its expressions in leadership. Though this exhibition explicitly discusses and portrays the female body, it is essentially proposing that “our” bodies (meaning every BODY… male, female, transgender, non-conforming)…is sacred. Our blood is sacred. And no one has the right to deny our sanctity. In a world that insists that power, relevance, significance, and worthiness is something you earn, cultivate, or fight for…  I’m proposing that it’s something within you, simply because you exist. You are a sacred being.