Today we’d like to introduce you to Amanda Bomster-Jabs.
Amanda, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I was born in South Korea and came to the States through adoption. I grew up with two older brothers who were also adopted from South Korea and as kids, we used to do a lot of activities together. From little league baseball to piano lessons, my parents were really persistent in not only keeping us busy but also finding activities we could bond over. A lot of the activities were duds, but the one activity we equally enjoyed was drawing. We would draw for hours and filled sketchbooks and binders with our drawings.
One of my brothers and I ended up going to school for art and while I was in university, he moved to South Korea to teach English. While he was there, he did a search for his birth family and found them within a week. The news of my brother finding his birth family was a huge deal for my family. Birth families felt more like an abstract concept, and him finding his birth family was reality stepping in, that he was part of a family prior to the one I was in with him. In order for me to have him as a brother, he had to be separated from them. It was something I wrestled with a lot, even as I did my own search for my birth family.
In October of 2016, I submitted paperwork to start the search for my birth family and found them the next month. I went to meet them in autumn of 2018 where I met both my birth parents, a sister, a grandmother, aunts, uncles, and cousins. When I was there, I took lots of photos of the mountainous landscapes that surrounded my birth parents’ neighborhood and the city where I was born. The mountains were almost comforting but felt like an eerie, otherworldly reminder of what I lost.
I returned from Korea confused and deeply sad, trying to process everything I had experienced. One day I was looking at my photos from my time there and was deeply drawn to the photos I had taken of the mountains. I started creating a lot of mountain drawings, abstracting them and playing around with their shapes. They were really comforting to work on, even though I continued to struggle with making sense of my new relationship with my birth family.
A couple of months ago, I went back to Korea to visit my birth family for a second time. My brother, who had moved back to the US years ago, hadn’t been back to Korea or seen his birth family in five years. He flew to Korea and the day he arrived, my birth mother, sister, and I met him and his birth family at their home.
It was a really surreal experience having our birth families meet. My brother and I were both placed for adoption for a similar reason, so we had hoped that with our birth families meeting, it could provide each of them with someone who could understand their situation in a complex way. It felt like a ‘coming full circle’ kind of an experience.
I feel like reuniting with birth family takes a lifetime to integrate and process. My first trip coming back from Korea, my thoughts around it were primarily about the subsequent feeling from losing my birth family. This second time, I’m beginning to acknowledge the loss that I feel I would’ve experienced had I not been adopted. There was tremendous gain from being adopted, but also tremendous gain I would’ve had if I had not been placed for adoption (connection to my birth culture and birth family).
I’ve been starting to detour more into creating artwork that explores my realization that to be human, it means feeling both loss and gain always. Along with creating art around my adoption, I also keep a blog called ‘Somewhere Between Here and There’ (somewherebetweenhnt.com). Both have been super helpful in helping me process everything I’ve been feeling. I’m hoping that with my art and my blog, it’ll not only be helpful for other adoptees, but for anyone who feels “in between.”
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It definitely hasn’t been easy. I’ve always been interested in conducting a search for my birth parents, but never felt secure enough to do it until recently. I had a lot of anger towards my birth mother in particular, and while I knew the reasons they couldn’t raise me were financial, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I wasn’t wanted and was flawed. I spent a lot of time learning how to forgive my birth mother, which started with me learning to accept myself.
We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
While creating my own work, I’ve been also interested in venturing more into the commercial illustrative realm. I’ve been interested in creating art that is more physically accessible to people rather than creating work that only a small percentage can see. Creating work that is honest is something I aspire to. Since visual art has the power to convey things beyond words, I also hope to create work that my birth parents can understand.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
I wouldn’t change anything.
Contact Info:
- Website: Art Website: www.amandabomsterjabs.com
- Instagram: @amandabomsterjabs
- Other: Adoption Blog: www.somewherebetweenhnt.com
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