Lederhosen

Lederhosen
woodcut and collage
2012
by Jennifer Groeber

To begin, you need to know I get the chokey voice. When I first met my husband it was the chokey voice, plus I tapped my nose and I got a red splotch the shape of Ohio on my left cheek. My husband, then my boyfriend, graciously said he found it endearing. And all this, I got every time I talked about something that touched my large, New Jersey, oft-cracked-never-broken heart. I got the chokey voice.

When I was teaching it happened every time I talked about something I found meaningful in front of an audience of, oh-let’s-say, 350 adolescents. Now it happens rarely. What’s to chokey-voice over these days and who’s listening anyway?

But this week I had a show. (Did I mention I had a show of thirty-five prints hanging right here in greater South Hamilton? Also, I started a blog. Did I mention that?)

And this show is a show of woodcuts, prints of dresses mostly, and a few prints of things like my kids’ Halloween costumes, the hats my twins wore as NICU preemies and a few nautical things that make me happy. But mostly, my show is of dresses. These dresses my mother bought and washed and mended for my two sisters and me, and after Jasper was born, she tried to foist that crazy hoarder’s carload of boxes of dresses onto me.

Shamefully, I kept only one small box. And these have inspired my prints. The thought of me as a mother buying, washing and mending, just like my mother did, and the thought of me as a girl and now having my own children, well it’s gotten stuck in my craw and only can escape my inner murky muck through woodcuts.

But the real outlier in all these fairly girly prints is the trio of prints I made the summer before last when my severely retarded brother Butchie died. There is an image of his braces (Butch Braces), a hospital onesie (Failure to Thrive) and of course, Lederhosen.

Butch Braces
2012
woodcut
by Jennifer Groeber

This is where the chokey voice comes in.

On Monday I gave a gallery talk to about thirty-five bright and creative adolescents about my work. I talked about the creative process, about making woodcuts specifically, about what inspired me. And then, I talked about the Lederhosen.

I told the students that their own basements were filled with boxes of evidence about their adolescence that they would currently find annoying, then someday angering, then later, poignant, and eventually, tragic (and tragically funny, if they allowed it.) I pointed at exhibit A: Lederhosen.

My father bought my brother leather Lederhosen when he traveled to Germany for business and we had no money to waste  and my brother was only 8 or 9. The teens surrounding me got the humor. My brother wasn’t toilet trained! They’re leather lederhosen! Get it?! That’s funny! Awkward maybe, but funny.

But then (and here came the chokey voice), can you imagine that? This man who knows that his son, his namesake and oldest child, may never walk, or be toilet trained, will likely never talk, and certainly will not have a family of his own, well, he bought him LEATHER LEDERHOSEN. What was he thinking? Who does that?

Dad, Butchie, one of my sisters, my younger brother and me
Cape Cod, 1976

I mean, who? does? that? There’s such hope there. Or naivette. Or maybe it’s hope and naivette and longing and… and a father’s love. I can’t get over that. The humor and the foolishness and the hope and love a father has for his son no matter the circumstances.

My show was called This Woman’s Work, because it was about being a mother, about buying, washing, and mending those dresses, and because that Kate Bush song kills me every time.

Pray God you can cope.

I stand outside this woman’s work,

This woman’s world.

Ooh, it’s hard on the man,

Now his part is over.

Now starts the craft of the father.

I know you have a little life in you yet.

I know you have a lot of strength left.

I know you have a little life in you yet.

I know you have a lot of strength left.

I should be crying but I just can’t let it show.

I should be hoping, but I can’t stop thinking.

But with that chokey voice talking to those adolescents, I realized my artwork is about that moment with my father and Butchie, too: the humor and hopelessness and hope of parent love, of being who we are despite, and because of, where we came from.

I should be crying but I just can’t let it show.

I should be hoping but I can’t stop thinking.

My father bought my brother leather lederhosen, even though he knew better.

May we all buy our children leather lederhosen.