art and motherhood

 

Female artists have challenges and rewards from becoming a mother that men will never understand. This is partly why the Art is a Man’s World.

My mother

Velma (Vemay) May Dibble was born in 1936 in Vancouver, the third child born to Mary Hamar and Adam Cornelius Dibble (Drapaka). My maternal grandparents were born in Alberta to immigrants from Ukraine and Poland, who settled in Alberta in the early 1900’s. They were hardy pioneers, Socialists and very active in the Labour Movement. My great uncle Danny Hamar was a popular activist in the 1920’s, and started a tradition of freedom fighters in my family.

It’s a strange coincidence that my father was a German Nazi and my mother was a Polish Communist. Once again, Germany invaded Poland and resulted in a world war. I think my father married my mother for her looks, as she was a cross between Marilyn Monroe and Sophia Loren, a perfect Aryan wife.

Vemay 11 years old

Velma should never have had children. She wanted to be a serious author and write books about politics, and wanted to be revered as an intellectual. When she became a mother for the first time, she had the family dog babysit while she helped my father. By the time I came along, the marriage was on the rocks, my mother was unhappy and taking “Mother’s little Helpers” with her evening cocktail.

chronic neglect

Mother was barely interested in being a mother. She wasn’t abusive, just neglectful. I never saw a dentist. My second trip to the doctor was because I suffered abdominal pain for over a year, my aunt finally noticed, and I had a gall bladder infection. Knowing full well that my mother wouldn’t pay attention to the doctor’s advice, I listened carefully as he recommended a fat free diet. So at the age of 8, I learned how to eat healthier. My mother didn’t change the grocery list, it was usually lots of pork, butter, lard and cheese, so I adapted.

My mother did not discuss my changing body. My first period, and every one after, I was forced to use toilet paper as a menstrual pad. I stole one of my mother’s bras and altered it to fit me. Her only advice about sex was “Use oral contraceptives….just say NO!…haha”

I was a teenage mother

Angel 1973

Mother was always looking for the next husband. She met a rich man who lived up island, so she would spend weeks away from home. At the age of twelve, I was left to babysit my younger sister, who was six years old. I was lonely and overwhelmed. Then I met my first boyfriend, Jim Zolkos, and he would spend many nights over. Of course, I became pregnant.

It was 1973, and there was no way for me to get birth control, in those days, even condoms were not very available. My mother wouldn’t listen to me, and I had no one to talk to, so I ignored my growing baby. By the time my mother clued in, I was four months pregnant.

My mother hid me away, telling everyone that I was up in Nanaimo babysitting. She did not tell anyone about my condition, no one in the family knew. I was not allowed to leave the house for fear the neighbours would see me. I made a lot of art during this time. I was home schooled, did yoga, and sewed a lot. It was a lonely time, exasperated by my mother’s drinking and raving into the nights.

On June 1, 1974, my baby girl was born. my mother was “tired of waiting” so she had the doctor induce labour. I lay in the hallway of the Royal Jubilee Hospital on a gurney with tubes in my arms, for what seemed like hours, the passing nurses sneering at me for being a pregnant teen.

Not long after, I moved into my first apartment, and a better life began. My art practice guided me, and after an adventurous year up North, I enrolled in Vic High Secondary school because the art teacher was a master calligrapher. I lived in a big rooming house where I met Sandra Millott, another budding artist. I was on my way!

I am eternally grateful to my mother. Because of her, I became self sufficient early in life; I am incredibly strong, resilient and resourceful. I wouldn’t want any other mom.