He Clipped Your Wings
30th of August 2026
I am standing here working on this project beautiful weather sunshine Sunday my kids with grandparents. I finally have time to focus on my work and the some of the thoughts I’m having are while I’m working. I’m just focusing on the guilt that I should be with the kids I should be in the park. The in-laws are elderly and don’t move enough so the kids will just be sitting at home not getting the vitamin D in the sunshine so I’m just feeling this tremendous guilt and trying so hard not to give into it and not to just drop everything and go and take my kids to the park I think this also has to do with this feeling of loneliness and the feeling of knowing that eventually they will not want to spend time with me but I think there’s a lot of constraint as well so I’m the whole idea of wings. I’m trying to understand why am I working on this why did I decide to make this is a project and why I pick orthopaedic posture correction corset as a base to attach the wings to. I feel subconsciously I went back to the time when I was 12 and found out I had scoliosis and I was going to either have a surgery or have to exercise my whole life to make sure my back wasn’t getting worse. My biggest fear was going through surgery, which went wrong, like my grandma’s sister, who ended up with a hunchback. She was never able to study medicine because of that, in post war Poland there was no understanding of diversity, no mercy for imperfections. The corset represents the fear I felt from hearing these stories and simultaneously the restrictions the society places on us, which, depending on our character we can either rebel against it or surrender. I think I’m still wearing that corset even though my back has been fine for 30 years. I’m wearing this mental corset made from the rules imposed on me since childhood: this is how good girls behave and this is how mothers behave and mothers who love their children unconditionally shouldn’t be not wanting to be with them. And even though I feel I need to be making art in order not to go insane and to deal with all my worries and thoughts and vulnerabilities through making I think I’m finding it very difficult to flap my wings and soar and just let my heart take over. I’m making these wings which are kind of flapping weakly as I’m making them and they’re not really sturdy at all. They’re very weak and it’s like I want to soar but I can’t because the tightness of the corset and the weakness of the wings…I don’t know, I don’t know. I think that’s just what I want to say with this piece is that you might really really really want something and it is so difficult to stay strong and determined and not give up midway and not look for excuses that are constraining you, excuses based on what you’ve been told throughout your life. Like the mother in the Bernstein movie “If I had legs, I would kick you” I feel if I had stronger wings I would soar, if I had more faith in myself, I would fly, if I believed in myself more I would know what to do to succeed as an Artist. I guess this piece is about weakness, vulnerability, trying to fly really hard but not being able to, feeling held back and constrained and generally trying very weakly to feel free. But I think there’s something about control as well here, how I am not able to let it go and I’m constantly thinking about the kids. Is it because I think as a mother only I should know what’s best for them and I think at the moment the best thing for them would be to be outside in the sunshine running around, not inside with grandparents watching on Ipads and the thought that when I’m not there this is what’s happening is really disturbing and distracting and I feel that I need to go there and make sure I control the situation and I want to blame my husband for not being there, thinking that if he was there, the kids would go outside. I want to blame myself so there’s again that feeling of being constrained and controlled but also wanting to control everything and I guess if you want to fly you have to give up control so hence another reason I’m having trouble flying.
Me: I want to fly but the corset, it’s so tight, so constraining, I can’t, I really can’t move.
Demon Witch Feminist: Cut the corset away, you’ll be free
Me: Cut it away? But I’ve spent so much of my life conforming, agreeing, saying yes when I meant NO, I don’t know any other way.
I’m so scared I don’t want to cut it away, who knows what’s on the other side?
The title actually came from a private conversation, it’s something my stepdad said about my husband about 10 years ago, when our son was about 1-2 years old. It really stuck with me. I don’t know why. I was quite upset at him for saying it but simultaneously I chose to believe it was true, as a result continuously blaming my husband for everything that went wrong with my life/work/ideas. Blaming him for the fact that “men have it better” and “women give up much more when they become mothers”. I am revisiting this now and thinking: I have a choice. I can keep on procrasting and blaming or I can get shit done. Which one is it going to be?
