A review by bribeatris
Daybook: The Journal of an Artist by Anne Truitt

4.0

On the back of my old ratty copy of Daybook: The Journal of an Artist by Anne Truitt I wrote, “What comes to mind when I read this is gentle. Despite its harsh and jarring realities, it feels gentle.” I don’t know when I wrote that, nor do I remember writing it but as I finished the book and found that page, I realized it was true. Anne Truitt was a sculptor and a mother and her journal consisted of entries on how to be an artist and a mother, how to be an artist at all, what it means to be an artist, to work with your hands, to create something outside of yourself that holds your soul. The taxing, laboring, energizing, rewarding thing of being an artist. My heart got really soft when she spoke about being a mother, and growing old and growing apart from her children, and what it means to be an artist and a mother, and how they can feel like two different identities, and sometimes she thinks the child needs more than what the artist can give. And then she also writes about what it’s like to be a grandmother, to grow old while someone brand new is coming into earth. She said, “In some similar way, as peacefully as I can, I must reduce my territory in the lives of these people most dear to me in the world.” I thought of my mother and all our mothers, that inevitable reducing they must do as the children expand and grow on their own. How hard that must be, how many tears they must have to swallow. For some reason we regard mothers as superhuman figures who don't have emotions, maybe we regard a lot of people that way, and when she wrote the simple sentence, “My feelings were hurt.” I felt it profoundly. Simple. But despite any hurt feelings, and the demands of motherhood she had so much drive and ambition, and desire to always pursue her craft. “If I wish to be responsible to myself, and I do, I have to pursue my aspirations.” She reminds us that we must remain independent to survive, that doesn’t mean isolation but when everyone is gone for whatever reason we have to be able to move on, to work, to create, to do something with our hands, to live.