Childbearer Spotlight: Keira Grant

A brief look at Keira in action.

Keira was the first childbearer I connected with. She immediately saw the possibilities in my project idea, and the need for experiences like hers to be given a platform. It was gratifying to embark on See Me Bearing alongside Keira, and her remarkable ability to face difficult realities and at the same time, stay alive to all the bright beauty in the world.

These qualities inform her role as an advocate for maternal health disparities, one she knows the urgency of all too well; Karis, one of her baby twin girls was lost after she promptly sought care and doctors failed to prescribe a simple course of antibiotics. In her community work she shares her story and conveys that unfairly and tragically, in our country such preventable deaths are faced more often by mothers of color than white mothers.

Her scholarly intellect and powerful imagination make higher education a pleasure for her; she has a bachelor’s and a master’s degree, and plans to pursue a doctorate. One of her degrees is in the field of Creativity. She is inspired by her Christian faith as well as the world around her. Her active mind sees deep, gorgeous and thrilling connections in many places. She spoke to me eloquently about water, outer space, stars and ancestors, and about wildflowers, butterflies, and practices of remembrance.

Knowledgable about the process of creativity, and confident about the role of synchronicity in it, Keira came to her photoshoot with a completely open mind. As we talked about her deep commitment, through often dark and difficult days, to keeping faith with the beauty and meaning within her often-painful reality, she noticed a lemon on my table.

Detail of painting in progress.

She registered its happy color, its fresh aroma, its bright flavor and its bitter rind. The way its sourness can assault one’s mouth into a pucker, spoke to her. She even has an affinity for lemons and citrus in her decor and cuisine. For her, the duality of the lemon’s pleasant and unpleasant characteristics, and how those characteristics sometimes meld and dance together, mirrored the emotional landscape of her childbearing experience. The joy she takes in loving her living daughter Kaia, and in having given birth to Karis remains undimmed; it just exists in a constant duality with grief, sadness and trauma.

We went for a walk to the store to buy a lemon, and on the way Keira decided to actually take a big bite of the lemon for the picture. Thus we worked together to create an exciting source image for a big, face scrunching oil painting, of her letting this symbol hit her full in the face.

Keira is poised, and an absolute breath of fresh air to speak with. Personally, I am so grateful to have met her. As an artist, I can’t believe my luck to be able to include her spirit and perspective in this project.