44 Shannon - Your Daughter is in Good Hands
/Transcript
Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/44
Haley Radke: [00:00:00] You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. This is Season 3, Episode 5, Shannon. I'm your host, Haley Radke. Today I'm going to introduce you to Shannon Peck, a conceptual artist whose work is sparking conversations. I have been slightly obsessed with her as of late because anything that makes people pause and reflect on what adoption actually means to an infant and its mother. That's incredibly important work, and we just need more of it.
We wrap up our discussion today with recommended resources and, as always, links to everything we talk about will be on the website, adopteeson.com. Just before we get started, I want to make sure you're subscribed to the show in your favorite podcatcher, like Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, [00:01:00] and you'll get next week's episode delivered automatically. So easy. Okay, let's listen in.
I am so pleased to welcome Shannon Peck to Adoptees On. Welcome, Shannon.
Shannon Peck: Thanks Bailey.
Haley Radke: I think I first found you on Instagram and I followed some of your preparations for an art exhibit that you are doing and I think that's where we first connected.
Shannon Peck: Yeah, I think it was.
Haley Radke: I'd love to first get a bit of your story, and then I would love to talk about your art with you, if that's alright. Why don't you start with your story?
Shannon Peck: I was born April 3, 1970. And my birth mother relinquished me at 10 days of age, which was in British Columbia. That was as soon as you were allowed to sign on the dotted line. On the 11th day, I was picked up by my adoptive [00:02:00] parents and taken home to meet my older brother. Yeah, I didn't spend any time in foster care and I was picked up directly from the hospital.
Haley Radke: And is he adopted as well?
Shannon Peck: My older brother is adopted, and I also have two younger siblings who are my parents’ biological children, so there's four of us in the family. Big mixed bag of kids. It was a pretty idyllic family, four kids, I always knew I was adopted. Whenever I had questions, I'd ask my mom about being adopted and she'd tell me about my birth mother, the little bit of information she had. There was a filing cabinet they had a few records in, so I could go in there any time I wanted to look at letters that came from the ministry that my mom and dad had on file.
So I always felt comfortable in asking them about that. That was never an issue. I went through life not thinking anything much about being adopted. Always was very curious about my birth family. [00:03:00] And when I turned 19, my mom told me that I was old enough, I was allowed to apply for non-identifying information from the B.C. government. I went ahead and mailed in my birth certificate copy and applied for that and I got a pretty benign typed three paragraphs of information. One about my birth mother saying she was 21 and what she looked like. A paragraph about my birth father, and then a paragraph saying they had met in Europe, she was on vacation, it was a short-term duration relationship, and I was best placed in a family with two parents.
So a lot of the typical story that adoptees hear. And after that, again, I didn't really do a lot with that information, there was nothing to be done. I didn't have any names, and I went through life, university, got married, and then in 1996, all of a sudden, I heard on the news that B.C. was opening the adoption records.[00:04:00]
And all of a sudden, we could apply and get copies of our original birth certificate. So I was lined up at the door on the first day that we could apply and paid my 30 dollars and I knew that in a few months I would know who my birth parents were and what my birth name was. And I waited and waited.
Probably it was about six months later that I finally got a call from the ministry and went in to pick up my file. And when I did, I was taken into a conference room and there was a social worker there and it all seemed rather serious. And I wasn't sure why, but when they sat me down, they told me my birth mother had filed a veto on the record.
She was one of probably just a few percent of birth parents that did that. So the veto meant I would get my records, but anything that had her name on it would literally be blacked out. So I got 40 pages of records with blackouts on [00:05:00] my birth certificate. My birth father wasn't noted on my birth certificate at all which, again, is quite common.
But interestingly enough, she did file a statement with the veto saying why she didn't want me to know who she was. And she basically said, adoption's a personal matter. I don't wish the adoptee to locate me. I don't know who or where the father is. And my family doesn't know about this incident and that was kind of, pretty blunt and yeah, that was all there was to it.
I took all my information home and I remember saying to my husband when I got home, I'm not an “incident,” I'm a little girl, like, how ridiculous is that in this day and age? But, I just filed it away and moved on. My adoptive father had just passed away and I was going through a difficult time. So it was something that clearly I wasn't ready to deal with at that point.
And again, years and years [00:06:00] went by and occasionally I'd pull the papers out and look at them and it was fun and interesting to read through the records. Look at my health records. Look at my adoptive parents. Their social worker visits when I was placed and, you'd read about the family dog and my brother and little outings we had and their take on my parents, which was in some cases quite funny to see what they had to say. But yeah, I just left it till about 2011. And I ended up in counseling. My husband and I were having a really difficult time and we had started counseling, couples counseling.
And then, my husband had done a workshop on attachment and he said, Shannon, you might like this, maybe be open minded, check it out. So I signed up for a 10-week workshop on attachment with a local counselor, and it was a women’s only workshop. And I think there were only four or five of us in the group.
And I went on the first night, and more of us started telling us about what attachment was, and [00:07:00] explaining the bond between mother and child, and how our brains are still forming in the first six, seven years of life, and how that not getting an attachment or having a broken bond can affect how we make relationship in later life.
And I said to her, I was adopted at birth but that never affected me, I have great parents, I have a fabulous family, that has nothing to do, and then I said, Okay, Shannon, you need to open your mind and at least you need to listen to this because I think you're missing out on something.
Over the course of the next week or two, I started to become very much interested in what she was saying about attachment and I'd come home and research all I could and then I came across Nancy Verrier's book, The Primal Wound, and I was instantly out of the fog. I started reading that and it just hit me and I was like, oh my goodness, I can't believe I've been living in a fog my [00:08:00] whole adult life, thinking being adopted didn't affect me. And frankly, I look at my cycle in relationships and friendships and I've got all the telltale signs of someone that is scared of being rejected, abandoned and hurt. Yeah, that workshop was just eye-opening and I just started reading and taking in anything I could and trying to figure out what my triggers were and understanding better how I could stop that cycle that I had of, whether it was like control or inability to be vulnerable with friends or my spouse, and just accepting who I was. It's still a work in progress, but at least reading and understanding that information helped me realize why I was doing the things I was doing, and there was nothing wrong with me. I had a trauma at birth and this is why I continued this cycle of events.
So to me, that was like the turning point [00:09:00] in my adult life where I really started to accept myself. And that's when I stepped back into doing art. I've been doing art my whole life, but that's when I really started taking more of an interest in my life as art, and looking at how my identity was shaped. And whether it was through painting that I did, or textile art that I did, and just really focusing on myself as a child that had a past with hurt and trying to come to terms with that.
Haley Radke: That is so fascinating because I talk to a lot of adoptees who get placed with adoptive parents and it's not great, or they're abused, or there's just something there that is not right. So it's easy to look at them and be like, of [00:10:00] course, adoption has affected them, and you described your childhood as idyllic. And it sounds like your mom was really supportive, saying you're 19, you can apply for your non-identifying information and stuff. So it sounds like you have had really supportive parents and everything. And yet there's still this influence on your life.
Shannon Peck: Yeah, there's definitely still a longing, right? A longing to know where you're from and where your roots are and who those people are that made you. Because you can adopt your adoptive parents’ heritage but it's never the same. It's never who you truly are inside and you can pretend that it is, but that only lasts so long.
Haley Radke: Yeah, it was interesting. Even just how you were speaking about sitting in this conference room with the social worker and realizing you're not going to get the information that you hoped for. Oh, okay, but I'm not an incident. I don't know. It's like [00:11:00] you just have to have this flat affect just to preserve yourself. I'm not ready to look at this yet. That and you're so right, it's such a low percentage of birth parents who veto in every state or province that opens up.
Shannon Peck: Yeah, they say it's like one to one to two percent, if that. Yeah, I got the lucky number.
Haley Radke: So lucky. So lucky. Okay. So you started reconnecting with art.
Shannon Peck: I started with actually a class down in Victoria by Nick Pearce. He's a painter and he does a workshop called “Through Artists’ Eyes.”
And it's a workshop where you paint yourself and you paint yourself as a nude and it's a way of connecting with your image and just getting comfortable with who you are as yourself and reconnecting with yourself. And I actually took the workshop three times. It's with a group of women.
You each have your picture you're painting from and you spend the weekend just connecting with other [00:12:00] women who have had various challenges in life and are trying to figure out who they are, and that work really helped move me a little further along in acceptance of myself.
Following that, I got back into textiles, which I have done my entire life. I've stitched since the time I was probably four or five years old. Always liked to do embroidery and sewing through high school and something that always gave me comfort. So I started working on some embroideries and attended a workshop actually, in Tennessee, a stitching as drawing workshop.
And my thought was to start stitching my story of being adopted. And I was going to start with the anatomical basics of like, how is a baby made? And I had an anatomy coloring book that I had got from the thrift store with these scientific drawings and I thought they'd translate well to embroidery.
So I started doing the male and [00:13:00] female body parts and reproductive organs. And then came a baby that I embroidered and it was a week long course. So I worked with the instructor and she was a really good mentor that week in helping me work towards figuring out how I could bring an exhibit together. Yeah, just how I could bring ideas together that would be meaningful.
And so I came home from that class just really excited about moving forward with that. And as I got home, I thought I'll start looking through my old adoption records. They were pretty dog- eared by that point, they were about 20 years old, so I reapplied to the ministry for a new set of my file. I knew it would still be redacted, but I thought at least I'd have better copies. And that arrived around Christmas, I think, of 2014.
I got the file. I didn't think anything of it. I sat it around, and a few days before Christmas I pulled it out to go through it. And, lo and behold, on a page where there was an [00:14:00] interview with my birth mother in Catholic Services, they missed redacting my birth mother's first name. And on the original documents, her name was definitely redacted, but they had missed it this time.
So all of a sudden I had a name, I had a first name for my birth mother. And I was just beside myself that I knew she had a name. She became a real person at that point. I phoned up my family and I was telling them about it, and I sat the records aside and the next day I thought, if they missed that, there may be other things that they missed.
Maybe I better go through this really carefully. And on page three of my records, I already knew my birth name which was Carrie Lee, but I found my surname at birth, which was my birth mother's surname as well. And I found her birth date on another page, and I found my entire name again on my medical records in the file.
So somebody had done a really poor job in [00:15:00] redacting the information, which I was thrilled about at that point. So it was like, I think probably within 24 hours online through Ancestry, I found my birth mother's entire family history. They were written up in the history books of the town in Alberta that they're from. I found paragraphs about her taking a trip to Europe and then coming back and moving to Vancouver, which totally matched the information I had from the ministry, which said my birth mother went to Europe on a holiday and came back pregnant and moved to Vancouver. So it was just eye opening for me.
And again, at the time, I said to my husband, I know it wasn't even knowing my birth mother's name as much as I finally knew who I was for those first 11 days of my life. I had a different identity at that time. And I finally knew who that identity was. And I felt like there was a [00:16:00] child that had been trapped inside me.
There was the Shannon Peck, who I am now, and there was the Carrie. Lee, who was this little girl at 11 days old who was given away, and I felt like that was the beginning of finally being able to reconcile those two people back into one person. Yeah, again, I didn't realize adoption had affected me, I didn't realize that I was really struggling with the rejection, with abandonment, and with just a feeling of loss.
I didn't realize what that was until I found it.
Haley Radke: So what did you do with this information? You know who she is?
Shannon Peck: Yeah. So I had that information and I started searching online and I had found her, but I didn't obviously have her married name. But with the help of another genealogist online, I found my birth mother's [00:17:00] mother's obituary. And within probably 10 minutes, I was able to locate cousins on Facebook and then a half brother and then my birth mother who was on Facebook. And I came face to face with pictures of her and her husband and her son, who's my half brother, and they live 90 minutes south of me. Yeah, so that was even harder, I think, because she's so close, but she might as well be halfway around the world because she's not interested in knowing me. So I think that made it a lot harder just to come to terms with that at the time.
Haley Radke: Yeah. And I have shared before that, I did find mine and then we had a brief reunion and then she cut off contact, but she's 20 minutes and I could be on her front doorstep.
Shannon Peck: Yeah, it's just so hard. So hard, because I think I could just drive down there. With Google Maps, you can see where people live. I could knock on her [00:18:00] door, but I just can't be that invasive, so I left it at that. I knew who she was, I looked at her on Facebook, I found a bunch of pictures and information and at that point, I just really focused on my exhibit that I was working on. I think that Exhibit at that point really started to take a different shape.
When I first started, my goal was to write about my adoption story. And it was more like a rebuttal to the disclosure veto that my birth mother had written. It was like an F you, you don't want to know me, but I'm an awesome person and this is my story. And I think when I got to see that she was actually a human being, and I could understand what she maybe had gone through as an unwed mother and growing up in a very staunch Catholic home, and really having no choice in giving me up that, yes, she became more of a human being and [00:19:00] my story in my exhibit became more of one about understanding what adoption was like and the social construct that was created by social workers and the government to aid in finding homes for these children and the shame that was around that for birth mothers and for adoptees and the problems with identity. So it became more an educational exhibit that was, although it was my story, it was more a way for people to understand what it was like in that period of time as an adoptee.
It's interesting because when I first started the exhibit, I wrote a letter to my birth mother that I didn't send. I didn't know who she was at the time. I just wrote a letter and I'd never actually done that before. So I was like 45 or 44 and I wrote a letter to my birth mother. I'm not an angry person. I'm pretty positive and upbeat, but you definitely could read [00:20:00] into it some anger and frustration. And I probably redrafted the letter 200 times in the four years before I actually sent her the letter. It's really fascinating to read through those letters and watch how the language, my language, changed over the years as I felt like I got to know her as a person, even though it was through Facebook, but just through reading about her family and her experiences.
And I think in coming to terms with things myself, it just became more of a letter that showed vulnerability, showed forgiveness, and showed that I was more at peace with what had happened. So I continued to work on the exhibit, and in 2016, it was probably about seven months before the exhibit launched, I decided I should send a letter to my birth mother, because I wanted her to know that the exhibit was happening. I wanted her to know that [00:21:00] I knew who she was and I didn't want her to freak out in case she saw the advertisements for the exhibit. The fiber community on the island is fairly small and I know my birth mother's also involved in fiber.
Yeah, she's a quilter, an avid quilter, and I do fiber and quilting. We have two degrees of separation between many friends online, so I thought I should reach out to her and at least tell her. So I wrote her a long letter and sent pictures, and I sent this letter by registered mail.
And one of the funny things I did, which kind of shows my quirky sense of humor, was when you opened the envelope, the first thing you saw was from a record album. It wasn't The Sound of Music, but it was some other album where there was a nun waving on a bicycle. And my birth mother grew up Catholic, and I was adopted Catholic. So the first thing she opened and saw was this nun waving to her on a bicycle, which is just a little bit of my wicked sense of humor. [00:22:00]. Obviously she signed for the letter, opened it, and I got notification from Canada Post that she had signed for it.
And then her Facebook page within a couple of days was pretty tight. Like I could only see her profile picture. Everything else was removed. So I knew she was freaking out at that point, that she was absolutely fearful I was going to show up, even though I said I would not. I knew at that point that her family didn't know, her husband and son didn't know. But I needed her to know that I was doing this exhibit and she was free to come and see it if she wanted.
Which was probably not going to happen, but I wanted to let her know that was going to happen. Yeah, it was a very strange time. Not expecting to get a response, but still hoping to get a response. And waiting, waiting, and I think the first six weeks I was, like, waiting. And then, as more time passed, it was like, okay, it's not [00:23:00] happening. She's clearly had a secret for 46 years, 47 years. That's not going to change. It's got to be forced out of her if anything's going to change.
Yeah, I just kept moving along on my exhibit and by the time April came around I had almost 84 pieces stitched for my show, which included everything from, I think I had about 25 hand-stitched and -sewn garments and dresses with quotes from my adoption history. And those were paired with a lot of the anatomical parts. So you had this whole scientific bit that was harsh and unassuming with these little baby dresses that had quotes about me being an incident and quotes about my adoptive parents being model people and quotes about my birth parents and their descriptions. I had dolls.
Yeah, [00:24:00] it was quite an undertaking to put together. It took me a total of four years. So when it did finally end up in the gallery, it was eight hours to install. And then it was three weeks in the gallery.
I remember the day it opened, which happened to be on my birthday, which was serendipitous, not planned, but I went in and spent some time in the gallery and the first person I met in the gallery was one of the volunteers. And she had not only relinquished a child at birth, she had also adopted a child. Almost every one of the volunteers that was a volunteer at the gallery had an adoptee story to tell me. And it was like, wow.
And that first day in the gallery, I was there for maybe two hours and every person that came in was crying walking through, and people coming up to me, sobbing and me holding these people who were strangers [00:25:00] in my arms. And I went home that afternoon and that night. And I said to my husband, what the hell have I done? I don't know if I can handle this. There's three weeks of this. And he's like, well, this is what you wanted.
But I expected there'd be an emotional response, but the response was so overwhelming by not just people that were adoptees and birth parents, but by anyone and everyone that walked in there that it still boggles me to this day.
Haley Radke: I remember seeing your Instagram feed and so I was seeing some of the things that weren't finished yet. And things you were moving towards and I was just stunned. And tonight, just before we got on the call, I went back through your website and you have this beautiful gallery of photos from the exhibit. And I just started sobbing. I genuinely started [00:26:00] going through it and I'm like, it is so moving. I'm fine. It's fine.
Shannon Peck: It’s okay. You're a crier.
Haley Radke: Oh my gosh. Everyone knows I'm a crier. I know. I totally am. The quotes that you have stitched on these little white sheath dresses, right? It's “Your Daughter is in Good Hands” and then the mirror that you have, and there's words that say, “Are you my mother?” And I can picture women going through and looking at themselves in this mirror and how profound is that? You have captured so many pieces of the adoption experience.
I wish I could have been there. I so deeply wish I could have seen the exhibit in person but the photos will have to do. The other thing that you had, right now and you mentioned earlier, “My family does not [00:27:00] know about this incident.” And then you have these little wooden blocks right above, like the kids’ wooden blocks, that say “incident” on top.
And I'm looking through these pictures and everything in my body is just feeling the weight of that. You are a secret from her whole family. And what does that mean when you come back looking for her? It's exactly what's happened. Secondary rejection. And there's so many of us that have experienced that.
You're shifting the cultural narrative, Shannon. Do you know what you've done? Seriously. It's amazing.
Shannon Peck: Thank you. It was very eye opening. And I think the three weeks that I spent in the gallery, my intention was to go every couple of days because they had full-time volunteers there. But after the first two days, I said to my husband, I need to be here every day in the [00:28:00] gallery. I need to be there to hear people's stories because everyone that came in wanted to talk to me and they wanted to tell me their story or their sister's story or their brother's story, their husband's story. And so we made arrangements to have someone help in our business during those three weeks so I could take more time to be in the gallery.
And I was there, anywhere from three hours a day to eight hours on some days and just listening to stories that were, like we know, sad and tragic and others were beautiful and hopeful. Yeah, just everything in between and it was both beautiful and sad to know that so many people cared and that so many people were interested and wanting to learn and understand about what it had been like for birth mothers in that era and what [00:29:00] adopted children go through. And most adopted children don't even either recognize or don't talk about it.
It's a social stigma that just is off left. The one thing with fiber that I think is easy for people to understand is if you walk into a gallery and you see paintings on the wall or big giant sculptures, sometimes people are just a bit cold. People don't even know how to take them. But if you walk in a gallery and you see an embroidery or you see a little girl's dress, it's just calming to people. And even if the words on that dress sucker punch you, it is still easier, I think, for them to understand and to take in the story and to feel empathy towards what's happened or what's gone on in that case.
Haley Radke: You even had a crib in one corner. The crib, and can you explain what was on the blanket and what was [00:30:00] printed on it?
Shannon Peck: Yeah, the crib was a big part of what I wanted people to walk in and see a nursery because I knew immediately they would think of the child. And so in the crib, I had a few things. I had my birth certificate, so my birth certificate, which was not my original birth certificate but my amended birth certificate when I was adopted. And I had the Supreme Court order of my adoption made into a baby quilt. And it was the full crib length with all little kinds of vintage embroidered little deer and bunnies and all those kinds of things you'd imagine on a baby blanket.
And then I had the letter stating that my birth mother had signed the relinquishment and the letter from Catholic Services on another quilt hanging over the crib. The way quilts are nice and soft and comforting but, again, the words on those quilts were things that can be devastating.
I had dolls in the [00:31:00] crib and baby blocks that said different things, had my birth names and had my relinquishment date and birth date. I had a little silver tray that I had done. It was this ornate tray and it had hand-embroidered “You're not an incident” or “I'm not an incident, I'm a little girl.”
I'd done a double-headed selfie doll, which at the time felt like I was reintegrating myself as an adult with that 10-day-old child that was relinquished. I made this double-headed selfie doll. And my mom at the time was like, what the heck are you doing? Like I had this two-headed doll that didn't have feet. It had these little mermaid legs on it. And nobody at the time really had a clue what I was doing until they walked in the gallery and they could see, they got a sense of the context with that reintegration. [00:32:00]
Haley Radke: Can you talk a little bit about that? You said you spent four years preparing this exhibit and over this time you said you came out of the fog in 2011 and you know that you're processing things and healing. Can you talk a little bit about actually making these things for the exhibit and what that did for you?
Shannon Peck: With fiber, like I mentioned, it's a nice soft thing you're working with. You're working with cloth and you're working with thread and you have your needle. It's a really simple thing. And for me, I'm a very tactile person. I find it easier to get my feelings out if I'm sewing or if I'm writing. I have a hard time finding words often. I really have to do a lot of preparation if I'm going to speak. I have to spend a long time thinking about what to say because the words don't come to me easy.
So when I'm working with textiles it gives me a way just to connect with my inner [00:33:00] self. And as I was stitching, I made, for instance, a pillowcase that had a stitched version of the veto statement that my birth mother wrote about me being an incident. And I probably spent three weeks hand stitching her words over and over every night as I worked on that I thought about her and I thought about what she had gone through and I thought about every one of those letters and words and what it meant and, yes, some of those words, like being called an incident, it is like you think, well, that's a hurtful thing but I also could look at it and think.
As I stitched these long hours understanding her fear and her shame. And she was disconnected. She had disconnected herself from that 21-year-old person who was pregnant and alone in Vancouver and gave birth. So it really helped me process the pain and suffering that I had, but also [00:34:00] process the pain that she felt.
It helped me forge a strong relationship with my mom and my family, my adoptive family. I've never been one that's rocked the boat when it comes to talking about things that are emotional or deep because I'm always worried about what people are going to think. But as I started stitching, I was feeling more comfortable about asking my mom about circumstances, about picking me up at the hospital, or what she noticed or anything else she remembered about how my mom and dad had named me, about how she felt, like she grew up in the era of the 60s. So what was it like for her to grow up in that era? She knew women that had given children away and understanding kind of better from her perspective what that was like.
The stitching is challenging in some ways and it's [00:35:00] also peaceful, and just over and over stitching. It's that repetition of stitch after stitch and just thinking I probably spent I don't know how many thousands of hours and four years stitching little tiny stitches and that whole time just immersed in my story and my identity and my birth mother's identity. I think to the point my husband was like, okay, enough already. Like four years, every minute of every day. That's all you talk about. That's all you do. But I'm sure you get that.
It really helped me come to terms with where I was and helped me express and vent my feelings through my art. Even with the fact my birth father was non-existent on my birth certificate. I knew that he was 22. I knew he was in the Air Force, and she met him in Europe. I knew what he looked like, and I knew a couple interests he [00:36:00] had based on the interviews she gave Catholic Services, but through the stitching, I felt like I didn't know who this person was, and I figured I never would, but I made up a name on my birth certificate for my birth father based on what his description was.
So he was known to me as Happy-go-Lucky because that was how he was described. And so I made him a real person at least on my birth certificate. So I felt I had two birth parents, at least. And that stitching helped me move through a lot of things over four years.
Haley Radke: It's interesting, what you said, you like to write and you like to do the stitching and stuff, but the stitching, you can get things out that you don't have words for, and I think it's like that for a lot of arts and with our adoption trauma, most of us that I've interviewed and that listen were [00:37:00] adopted as infants. And so it is pre-verbal trauma that we experienced. So I think it's so powerful to unlock that through different tactile mediums like that. Interesting. So interesting.
Shannon Peck: I think that until I actually did the work and did the exhibit and did the stitching and came through that, it wasn't until I had finished that that I actually could put into words what I had experienced. And my searching, I had spent years searching, and whether I felt like I was searching for my birth mother or myself or for God or for God knows what, like I spent years searching and then finally realizing after all this was done that I felt like what I was searching for was there with me all along, it was inside of me. It was this loss that I'd felt and I was searching to fill this big hole that I had in me. And it wasn't until I could reconcile my [00:38:00] identities, and certainly finding out who my birth mother was played a huge role in that as well.
Haley Radke: And now, the last thing I saw on your social media was all the little fetuses. Oh my gosh. And you sent me this photo of you with the one around your neck. Like a necklace?
Shannon Peck: With a scarf! I had been invited to be in a group show in Victoria at the Martin Batchelor Gallery and it was a show called “Threaded” and basically we could do any fibre thing we wanted and whatever we wanted so on the heels of “Your Daughter in Good Hands” I was still feeling like right in the whole adoption and watching out for children and the whole idea of being disassociated.
And so I decided to stitch a whole grouping of little baby fetuses. And I think I stitched 14 of them in the end, plus one big giant [00:39:00] one. And each of them had their own little identity, their own little brain trauma with different French knots. They had hand-woven and twisted umbilical cords and little wool placentas attached to them.
And each one was tagged with its own name as to what trauma it had been in. And so whether it was like an adopted child or an abandoned child or a child in foster or an abused child or a neglected child or just an unloved child, they each were tagged with what their trauma was. And each of them were stuffed into little glass jars, little terrarium jars with an opening at the front.
So the umbilical cord came out the top and hung there. And they were all grouped on the wall in the gallery. And yeah, it was my way of looking at that, the whole idea of being disassociated either from your birth identity or [00:40:00] the whole attachment thing with having a broken bond with your birth parent.
And that's not just for adoptees, it's for everyone, many children from many different walks of life. Adoptees don't own attachment. Like I've got friends, I have colleagues, they've all got different traumas. And when you look at the root of it, much of it has to do with the attachment and whether they were adopted or their parent didn't attach well to them for one reason or another. We all have that kind of bond together.
Those are my little fetus grouping, yes. And I did make a scarf out of one of them with the scarlet letter “A” on it for adopted. And I think it was a very hot day at the gallery opening and I had my little wool fetus scarf wrapped around my neck. The show got a lot of comments.
A lot of people I think were intrigued. The gallery owner said there was a lot of people that came in were [00:41:00] just like, they found it even offensive. And he was like, he thought that was great because anything that promoted discussion is what he was aiming for.
Haley Radke: But that imagery of having a baby in a glass jar. Basically not attached to anything, right?
Shannon Peck: Yeah.
Haley Radke: It is shocking.
Shannon Peck: But it does help people really see, visually get the sense of what it's like when you take a child from its mother and put it somewhere else. You get a sense of what that would look like. Again art can be words. You can write it down in words, but if you can actually see that visually, it really can bring home the point. And I'm all about pushing the limits on the artistic thing, like the wackier and more eccentric something is I'm happier with it.
Haley Radke: I really admire your [00:42:00] work and I think that you are making a huge impact. So thank you for it. Okay, Shannon. Is there anything else you want to touch on?
Shannon Peck: In the last few weeks, I know you are aware, Haley, but I've actually found my birth father in the last few weeks through DNA online, which has been amazing and shocking and altogether just surreal going from not having a name to Happy-go-Lucky and yeah, it's been amazing.
So that's the next journey. I'm thinking, where does that take me next in my art journey? I had some plans on another exhibit, but now I'm thinking I might head off in another direction. So we'll see where that goes. But right now we're just in the start of reunion and it's been a pleasant surprise.
Haley Radke: I’m so happy for you and [00:43:00] I hope that some of the previous podcasts that have come out will be helpful to navigate reunion, which can be very tricky, but it's always pleasant to be in the honeymoon stage of reunion.
Oh, dear, I promised Shannon I wouldn't dig into that because I want to be sensitive to things that are actually happening right now, but I'm very excited for you.
Okay, so in this season, instead of doing recommended resources where I come up with something and my guest does. My resource is really that you're going to check out Shannon's work. Shannon’s website is specksurfacedesign.com. And, as I said earlier, you can go in and look through a whole bunch of photos. I think there's over 20 of the “Your Daughter is in Good Hands” exhibit. And I really recommend that you do. There's a lot of media coverage as [00:44:00] well that you’ve got, Shannon, so there's some articles, other interviews, and I think I even watched a video, maybe that was with Shaw.
Shannon Peck: Yes, it was.
Haley Radke: Yeah, so you can get a sense of the exhibit. I've spent a long time, more than I'll admit, looking at those things and being very moved. So I recommend that you go and check out Shannon's work. Okay, Shannon, what would you like to share with us?
Shannon Peck: A few recommended resources I have. I know. Some have been touched on in past episodes, so I'll just go over those quickly. One is Anne Fessler, both the Girls Who Went Away, as well as a documentary she did, which are both fabulous to watch. Nancy Verrier, of course. Primal Wound and Coming Home to Self were big for me, just coming out of the fog.
And one for Canadian adoptees, which a lot of people aren't really [00:45:00] aware of, is by Anne Petrie, and it's called Gone to an Aunt’s. And it, like Anne Fessler, is interviews, but with Canadian birth mothers and about Canadian birth homes and their experiences, so it's nice to get a kind of at-home perspective for adoptees on that.
Haley Radke: I can't believe I have not heard of this. How embarrassing. I am Canadian. Most people think I'm American, but I am Canadian. I definitely want to check that out.
Shannon Peck: No, it's a good one.
Haley Radke: Gone to an Aunt's. Yeah. So that's the story, they say, right?
Shannon Peck: Yes. That's exactly it.
Haley Radke: The Girls who Went Away and Gone to an Aunt’s. What a great title. Okay, and there was another documentary that you wanted to talk about.
Shannon Peck: The other one is called In Utero, and it is just out, I think in the last year. You can go online and purchase and download a copy in your area. There's been a few screenings, but I think it's hitting a lot of the film festivals, and it is [00:46:00] about scientific research about how a mother and child, how a birth mother or how a mother's emotions and decisions she makes while the child's in utero affects a child for life, which will help adoptees understand some of the trauma that they may have experienced based on what their birth mother felt when they had to give them up. And it's really fascinating. The research is just starting to come out really fast and furious. Gabor Maté was one of the researchers working on that. And it's really fascinating. I definitely recommend it for anyone to take a look at.
Haley Radke: That sounds so good. And you're so right, there's more and more research about attachment and the effects of not having the mother bonding even right after you're born. And like you said it's great for adoptees to watch this, but [00:47:00] other people are affected by these things as well. Childhood trauma.
On the flip side of that, there's a lot of different excellent books that aren't necessarily for adoptees, but that address childhood trauma that adoptees should really be researching if you're interested in healing.
Shannon Peck: There are so many great books out there. I just finished one by Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score, which is phenomenal. Just phenomenal.
Haley Radke: Yeah, I think I've had a couple of the therapists recommend that in the Healing Episodes. Yes, that's probably on the “must read” list now. It’s been so fabulous to talk to you, Shannon, where can we connect with you online?
Shannon Peck: So, like Haley said, my website is specksurfacedesign.com and you can also connect with me through Facebook. It's facebook.com/speckledfrogg with two g's.
Haley Radke: Okay, I have to ask.
Shannon Peck: Yeah, “speck” is [00:48:00] my first initial and last name, Shannon Peck. And when I made my email years and years ago, I was a frog person. I love frogs. And two G's just because I'm unique. There's always gotta be a story behind those things. And then I'm on Instagram as well. Speck_surface_design.
Haley Radke: Oh, wonderful. Thank you so much for chatting with me. I loved hearing your story and I loved hearing the process of creating your exhibit and your other work. It's just so moving.
Shannon Peck: Thank you so much for having me.
Haley Radke: Oh, isn't it exciting to hear that Shannon found her father? The most recent news that I can give you is that she is going to be meeting him in person very soon after this episode goes live. [00:49:00] So I'm just thrilled for her.
Also she has just compiled an exhibit catalog of photos from “Your Daughter is in Good Hands.” So I have put a link to where you can order that in the show notes on adopteeson.com, and I am like waiting by my mailbox. I just ordered it and I'm ready to see it. As I said while I was interviewing her, I have spent a lot of time looking through those pictures on her website. They are just so moving.
I really have found it powerful to pause and look at them and actually experience the feelings. I know, it's so yucky to feel the feelings, but we just need to so that's been really helpful for me. So if you are a visual person and sometimes it takes a little something to push you to feel something, I would recommend that for you.[00:50:00]
Okay, you guys, I'm loving this Healing Series, healing through creativity and art, and I hope you are too. So if you have some ideas for guests that you would like to hear from, send me a note on adopteeson.com/connect. And also there, if you are an adoptee and you have a book you would like to promote or some other work, you can record a very short 60-second audio message and send it to me and I may include it in the next episode of the podcast. So you could hear your promo right here. I love to hear your voices. Send me an audio clip.
I just want to say a gigantic thank you to my Patreon supporters. You lovely, lovely people are literally what is keeping me doing this show and [00:51:00] you're making it possible for me to come every week and do this work for you.
I am just flabbergasted every time I go into our secret Facebook Group. It's for adoptees only. And people are sharing some very personal things and the rallying of the community has been amazing. So I'm just so proud of you guys. Can I say that? I don't mean it condescending, like I genuinely am so proud of you for how you are taking such good care of each other and how this community is building. And it's really amazing. So I love you. And thank you.
If you want to stand with me and with the work that Adoptees On is doing, head over to adopteeson.com/partner and you can read all about the details on Patreon. Patreon is this website that takes monthly pledges to help support creators like me.
All the details are on that website, [00:52:00] adopteesone.com/partner.
One very last thing before I say goodbye for this week, would you just share the show with one person. And sometimes the barrier for people to listen to podcasts is they don't know how easy it is to just grab their phone and listen.
So if you're with a friend for coffee or maybe you're at your adoptee support group, pull someone aside and say, have you listened to this show and let me show you how. Cause sometimes that's the barrier. I would love it if you would share the show with just one, one friend this week. Thank you for listening.
Let's talk again next Friday.
