Interview

1/How do you make creative work whilst also actively mothering ?

My son’s are 13 and 21. When they were smaller my practice took place in small snatched uninterrupted moments of time whilst I looked after them. For example I made work such as Dust Bread which saw me baking bread from the dust in my vacuum cleaner whilst my little son was napping and my older son was at school. I also made performances in collaboration with my youngest son and we completed two residencies together, Mother and Son (2015) and PLAY-AWAY (2016). I also made lots of drawings and kept sketchbooks. I found drawing to be a very helpful media when the children were small as I could work through ideas quickly and intuitively. I produced lots of drawings such as a series of hundreds of notations of pregnant torsos on small pieces of house hold paint colour sample paper. The paper was free  and I enjoyed the sequential images that I could produce on the seductive tonal range of colours/

When my son started school age 5, I would begin my studio day after I dropped him off and finish by 2 in the afternoon. This is pretty much how I structure my time now, though my days of work are longer as my son is pretty independent and also since the pandemic my husband has worked from home so he can keep a watchful eye on him when he is back from school. Teenagers though don’t need much watching, in fact I think they much prefer to have space just to be.

I can now complete an eight hour day 9am – 5pm in the studio which means I can get a lot more done. I work two days a week on mentoring and administration and two days a week in the studio so I clock on average 32 hours a week.  Friday is my well-being and sort our all the other domestic stuff out day at home.

These days, I find that I am now able to think, reflect and process what I am making in a more meaningful way. When the children were smaller I just felt exhausted and my time to make felt very fragmented. I felt like I was on constant catch up and making it in a big hurry, just doing it, winging it, making it up as I was going along, I think I just about managed to keep a creative practice going. Looking back I am amazed about the amount of work I did manage to make. I think I could have been much kinder to myself as it is very challenging doing both art and mothering.

2/What boundaries or challenges have you faced or overcome while working as an artist/mother

Finding the mental space, time and energy to make and the money to pay for a studio and materials. I have had to be very creative with my space, time and money. After paying for studio space there really is not much money left to pay for materials so I have had to be super resourceful with what I use and make.

When the children were small having a mobile phone with me all the time was such a helpful tool. I would make little performances with my son and take lots of photographs and write notes. I also would get up early before the family was awake to write and make work. I produced projects such as The Egg The Womb The Head and the Moon, which was on-line and working in collaboration with other artists from around the world. Projects such as this kept me inspired and motivated to make work and also helped to establish accountability and most importantly build a strong and  supportive community around my work.

It really is very hard to make work when your children are little, and being an artist /mother is can be an isolating experience and it is an i emotionally and physically demanding job. I maintain my arts practice and contribute to the family by earning money from selling art work, running workshops, mentoring and teaching, however this is inconsistent work so my job is financially precarious. I could not have produced the work that I have made without the help and support of my husband who has a  secure 9-5 full time job.

I have also found it incredibly difficult to get my work seen and shown in galleries, therefore the majority of exhibitions that I have shown in have been self initiated . I do love the DIY approach to exhibiting work, but I would also appreciate my work being supported by public galleries and organisations. I think that it is simply a matter of keeping going, making the work, asking for feedback when an application is not successful, learning from failure. Its also about being very organised, planning, setting goals, being open minded and resilient.It is also so important to do the research, make positive professional connections, find and forge  relationships with curators, galleries and organisations who are supportive and share an interest in the type of artwork that you make. I also think it’s about knowing what your core values are and sticking to those and selecting opportunities that are suited to your practice.

The most support that I have found for my practice, has been through individual artists, artist run collectives, communities and organisations. I am forever grateful for the support of Lena Simic, Paula McCloskey, Eti Salpeter, Martina Mullany, Tracey Kershaw, Amy Dignam and Desperate Art Wives, Deirdre Donnaghue and the M/OTHER VOICES project, MAMSIE, Dyana Gravina and Procreate Project, Kaylan Buteyn and the Artist/Mother community, Lauren McLaughlin and the Spilt Milk Gallery and community, Demeter Press, Helen Knowles and the Birth Rites Collection, the artists of MAM, Stay At Home: Issue One, the Maternal Art community and the MEWE arts collective.

3/How has the Artist/Mother community helped you to reflect upon your practice ?

Kaylan’s Artist/Mother podcast has kept me company for the last three years, I listen to her interviews in my studio and on long walks near my home. I have learnt and continue to learn so much from the artists she speaks with, not just inspirational ideas about media and practice but really excellent pragmatic professional advice and incredible stories shared related to the intersections between life and art making. Most importantly for me though I feel I have benefitted from the gentleness and kindness of these interviews that include how to embed good wellbeing practices when working as an artist. I have also felt seen and heard and supported by this wonderful rich, diverse and growing community of artist /mothers. It has been such an honour to work as a Mentor for this organisation and I am forever grateful to the community of artists that have made me feel so welcome and supported and who I have had the honour to work with.

4/How are you disrupting the idea of the “good mother” or idealised mother in your arts practice?

By honestly conveying my experiences as a mother to others through the radical act of making art. By being authentic and brave and sharing personal stories. By working to resist stereotypical ideas of the good mother who is passive and conforms. I actively seek to challenge these representations and also to challenge the idea of the artists profession being solitary, and uninterrupted. I endeavour to work in a co-operative way that is about forging meaningful connections and relationships with other artists in order to explore our diverse and shared experiences of what it is to mother and to practice as an artist.

5/How has art making helped you to become more resilient and maintain your wellbeing ?

Art making is central to my life and wellbeing. If I can’t make art then I don’t feel like a whole person. If I cannot make art I become sad and depressed. It is absolutely the core of my being and how I help to process my life and understand my place within it. Art is my primary form of communicate and is how I can best put my work into the world and contribute to culture and society.

Art for me in the first instance is for myself. I find it healing, when I am making I am no longer conscious of time, the hours pass quickly and I am totally absorbed with what I am doing. Art for me is about total freedom of the body and the mind. Art is my spiritual home and how I structure my days. I feel a great sense of achievement when I complete artworks , I am constantly learning and I love to share what I make, what I am thinking and where my ideas come from.

6/What do you feel you carry as a mother?

I carry a history of mental illness that runs on both the maternal and paternal sides of my family. I carry this illness and live with the challenges of it each day and I also work hard to  not to let it affect my children. When I am unwell I carry the shame of mental illness. I think that society is much kinder and more understanding of mental ill health now, however there is a lot of work still to be done especially in relation to access to the arts.

I have found that working as an artist there is not so much awareness of neurodiversity and invisible disability and how this can prove challenging to professional practice. Mental ill health can affect your confidence, your energy levels, it can be hard to think objectively, to process information, to complete funding applications, open calls, submissions etc. It’s hard not to take things to heart when an application is unsuccessful. I am a very sensitive person and I struggle with the idea of failure and how to emotionally process this experience.

I have been trying to build up my resilience by being kinder to myself and aiming for a higher rate of applications in order to increase my prospects of success. I have found that expecting to fail has changed how I think of these submissions. I allow myself one day to be disappointed and angry and then I move on by finding another opportunity to apply for.

7/How does drawing or process driven methodologies inform your practice?

I love drawing as It allows you to work things out, to play with ideas and experiment to ask questions and find solutions. It can be quick and immediate but can also take place over a long period of time. I love building up a visual language through a daily practice of drawing. Drawing is vital to my practice, to me it is like writing. A form of diary making.I like using ink and pencil and watercolours and working on the floor of the studio. I like loosing control and being free with materials but also being very controlled, systematic and ordered. I love exploring form and line and space. I like to pin up my work on the studio wall and to look back at it and be surprised by what I have observed and created. I also love to look over old bodies of drawings and use these as references or jump off points for new work.

I have found that drawing has helped me to create a visual language that communicates the complexity of emotions that I feel as a women, an artist and a mother.