Catherine Opie image of herself and her son.It was a a great boost of: I am not alone in this craziness.
As I said it was very informal - picnic style just sitting on blankets on the floor with a cup of wine. There were perhaps 7 or 8 of us all with young children. The discussion was somewhat haphazard & unstructured but it was still great.
Most of the mom's were feeling the same issues as me: How do you find a chunk of time in the studio? No real answers but shared issues.
I look forward to when me and my studio mate can swap baby days as she is having a little one next month. That will be AMAZING but of course a few months away since her babes will be brand new.
One of the great things about the discussion was finding out about the blog Momtra- or "art mom" backwards.
This blog is not regularly updated but a site that:
-lists writer and artist mama's - to show us that it can be done-(I actually made a list like this as part of my thesis show and made a piece about it. It was amazing to see how many very successful artists had children and you never knew)
-has a list of books, such as one that is artists talking about the experience of motherhood and the life as an artist. (I already ordered 2 of them.)
-lists family friend residencies
-mentions this documentary - I must somehow see it.
-and a very interesting recent article on mother/artists.
It also links to the search site called Searching for Mother that searches recent post, tweets, and articles hat mention the word "mother" it is in short AWESOME.
So I recommend checking all this stuff out even if you are not a mama.
But I still have not figured out how to get any actual work done?
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4 comments:
i choose (sometimes) to make art over having clean, well, anything really and take out food. but keep in mind it took me 6 years to finally feel like i was ALLOWED to do that! no one made me sacrifice as much as i have and i had to make myself say - everyone can help with the laundry, dishes, pick up, general menial tasks. i won't lie, its hard, everything looks so much better, smells so much nice and is better when I do it all - but my work and my MIND suffers if I dont' make space for ART! course' it sounds like you are way ahead of me on this issue, bravo mama!
i agree, trying to let other things go is sometimes SO hard but... I am trying to find a way to prioratize what is most important and let the other stuff get done when it gets done. but still, there is never enough time in the day. We do the best we can...
I am excited to check out the the momtra ~ just knowing that other artists are doing this juggling act helps on the days I want to sit in the corner and weep. It has taken me to my girls being 9 and 12 before I started letting somethings go. It does sound like you have some sound priorities already. I also wanted to say that i ran out to see - who does she think she is?? & I was a bit taken back by it. Many other artist/mom friends saw and enjoyed it - I felt it was more of a cautionary tale.... but that could be because of the place that i am in or was in. Just wanted to put that out there because I had gone to the movie hoping for the holy grail :). Also I read a great book about mom artists - i'll send u the title later - got to run and buy school supplies :) peace
yeah, my hopes are not high for the film but it seems like I should see it anyway.
We all are just trying to figure it out, right?
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