This artwork was inspired by my dissertation research “It’s Not Always Rainbows and Unicorns: The Lived Experience of Severe Maternal Morbidity among Black Women” (University of Connecticut, 2020). Van Manen’s Interpretative Phenomenology was the methodology for this study and allowed me to use my creative and artistic resources to enhance the understanding of the essential themes that emerged from the experience of the women in the study. This process was empowering for me because it gave me the opportunity to do something that I am passionate about to capture my research findings. This process was not about just painting a picture, it was about understanding what these women went through during childbirth and postpartum, then expressing that using art. I received positive responses from the women, feeling that it captured what they described to me.
Black Woman Pregnant
Black Woman Pregnant This artwork represents how race matters in pregnant Black women’s lives. Race Matters. What do we see when we see a Pregnant Black woman.
_________________________
Uncertainty
Uncertainty represents the emotional space the women found themselves when they realized they might not survive the complication. In this dark place, they felt afraid, alone, and helpless.
Safe and Well Cared For
Safe and Well Cared This artwork represents how women felt when they trusted and established a relationship with health care providers.
Still Healing
Still Healing This artwork represents the long process of healing after suffering a life-threatening complication. Although the women healed physically, it took time to recover mentally.
Rainbows
Rainbows represent the Black woman when she enters the health care system for childbirth and suffers a life-threatening complication. There are so many factors that cloud her childbirth experience.
________________________
About Lucinda Canty
I am a first-generation college graduate. I attended Columbia University, Yale University and recently received my PhD in Nursing from the University of Connecticut. While my resume is impressive, it is not what I value most about myself. What I value most about who I am, is that I am a Black, African American woman. Being a Black woman is the foundation of everything else that I represent. I am a Black woman first then I am a mother, nurse, nurse-midwife, nurse-researcher and nurse educator. Being a Black woman in this country represents a painful history, but it also represents strength and resilience.