Artists Residency in Motherhood

I’m writing this on the train. Life seems to have got so busy I haven’t written the blog for a while and its now  a year and a month since I started my artist’s residency in motherhood.  I haven’t really stuck to my plan to write once a week, but its been in the back of my mind a lot of the time and I’ve continued to work on several ideas through the year. Its been lovely to work on these ideas with no sense of a deadline or predictable outcome.

Recently we’ve got really into painting and I have been keeping every piece of paper with the plan of doing something with the painted pieces. Its been really fun and liberating as I haven’t painted since I was at school, where I lost all joy in it. I took Abie for his first trip to the art shop to buy materials and he chose some chunky brushes.

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One of the nice things I have felt during this residency has been the fact that being with a 1 or 2 year old slows you down. This is counter-intuitive in our highly productive, highly mediated society but it has allowed me to look at things in closer detail and appreciate the mundane.

I’ve been photographing lost toys for over a year and I’ve now started to put these on instagram (so yes, I am getting into the mediated world) as a way of archiving the photos. I’ve also been drawing the leftovers of the day in our house, and taking pictures of swings in different parts of the country. I’m not sure yet where all this will lead but it feels like the beginnings of a longer project which will emerge in its own time. One thing I’ve thought about is the geographies of play which you become so aware of with a small child  – which spaces in the city are open and available to play, how visible or hidden they are etc.

I get the sense that this residency isn’t going to be of a short duration, and instead will extend over the years as my son grows and changes and the activities we do together also change. So I think I will keep the blog going sporadically.

I’m my studio today finally going through all my project receipts, adding things up and reflecting on the 2 exhibitions I’ve just finished.

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The last month and a half have been taken up with finishing and installing the project I was working on last year, firstly in a church in West London and then in my studio in Brighton for Phoenix Open Studios.

I gave an artists talk in the church which my family joined, including Abie. He enjoyed the attention but of course did not understand why I was standing up in front of a group of people talking, and I think he wanted to muscle in on the event so I ended having to pick him up while I talked. This was a good learning curve for the next event I did, the opening night of the studios, and I asked my partner to keep him busy that evening. They came along later by which time I had done my schmoozing.

I think Abie enjoyed riding his scooter in and out of the studios over the weekend as well as doing some drawing and bouncing on the chairs, but he didn’t understand the nature of the artwork and wanted to pick up the books I had laid out and put them on the floor.
I’ve just been reading an interview with Paula Rego where she describes working in studio after having children and how the children were never allowed in the studio. Its true that its become harder to work at home because there is always so many other things to do be done so coming to the studio feels like a space to focus, a space where you can forget all the other things (not that you ever really forget) but anyway just be an artist.

I feel like I need that space especially after two exhibitions in short succession. Its great sharing work but it is also pretty draining. At least Abie is sleeping through now. He is nearly 2 years old, so I’m nearly done with my year of having a residency in motherhood. Maybe its time to move on, but maybe I’ll keep writing anyway – as a musician friend with a small child said to me on Sunday, you have to find a way to be accountable to yourself, don’t you.

We have moved house and this has shifted a lot of things. For example, we now have a carpet (circa 1965) which makes for a different kind of floor and I haven’t found a way to create drawings here yet. Instead we have been working in a new material, sticklebricks, and I have been documenting abie’s attempts at collages which look strangely like some kind of abstract paintings.

Tonight I’m watching Lynn Barber interviewing Philidda Barlow on Bbc 2.
Phillida Barlow says – having children is completely incompatible with being an artist (she had 5) – but then she managed to keep going, teaching and raising 5 children. And she talks about having a kind of perseverance of carrying on making art whether or not you have success.

This makes me think about success and failure. I applied for a bursary for some funding for ‘time out’ – childcare and costs to cover mentoring. I didn’t get it, which was disappointing. But I think as an artist you get used to a measure of rejection. Last year I remember going to an interview after being woken up 5 or 6 times by my baby son, and doing my best but being aware I wasn’t at my best. I think what I’ve realised though is that you just keep trying, you keep doing it, and its not all going to be successful but some of it will get there.

This is kind of the case in making the work as well; admitting difficulties to yourself, points in the process where it feels really hard, like it just won’t come together. I’ve been working on the installation in my studio now for months and its finally coming together, and will be exhibited in April, May and June.

I’ve also started a new commission which is for a public art work in Droitwich, based on its history as a salt producing town. This is exciting and I’ve been thinking about how I will research the commission, I love the wide open feeling of a new project.

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Tomorrow is mother’s day.

I entered my studio today and find an unfamiliar smell, which i discover comes from a baby beaker full of off milk. I vaguely recall bringing it in last week. It’s been another week of illness with Abie up most of most nights with a temperature and fluey symptoms. In this state its a toss up between what gets done and what gets left undone, so housekeeping takes a bit of a back seat both at home and in the studio.

A week after I wrote that sentence I am back in the studio, after being struck down with the bug Abie had. And then he got a vomiting and diarrhoea bug. So a lot of laundry and not a lot of sleep. Plus we are moving house next week, so there are boxes everywhere.

Coming to the studio feels like a space to breathe. I’ve been reading about the installation artist Ann Hamilton’s work, trying to trace the evolution of a practice. Today someone knocked on my studio door to borrow my key and we ended up having a conversation about how to define your practice. She had also worked with installation but had found it difficult to find the right opportunities so was turning to working with groups and on public art projects. We talked about how to tread a line between defining yourself too specifically as an artist and thereby missing out on opportunities, but also the need to have a recognisable practice. Working thematically is one way of negotiating this but its often hard to link everything together until after a piece of work has appeared. I don’t feel like being a mother defines my practice, but it has brought new aspects to both the way I make work and the ideas I’m interested in, not least feminism.

I’ve finally got an exhibition date for the piece I’ve been working on since last year, its going to show in April at St Thomas’s Church in Hanwell, the place we met the group and which was designed by Edward Maufe, whose wife Prudence Maufe worked for Heals and through her contacts brought in many well known artists and designers of the time to contribute to the church, so it feels like quite an honour to show the work there. I found a fascinating article she wrote for the spectator in April 1923 entitled ‘Married Women and Work’. Here is a brief extract:

“should she wish to start independently the greatest difficulty is to find a position in which she can organize her own time. As an employee she will find this almost insuperable, for in nearly all professions open to women there are certain fixed hours which have to be observed, and experience teaches that if these hours are really hard and fast, a married woman with children cannot fulfil her obligation in the treble life she is undertaking. But directly she herself becomes an employer, or can afford an assistant, she can undertake many responsibilities which would otherwise be impossible. Every married woman knows of the many serious and absolutely imperative occasions when her obvious duty is at home—in cases of sickness, &c.—so that if she is bound by some eight hour contract she cannot conscientiously do her job at home, but if she is allowed to arrange her own time, by organizing her work in advance, and doing much overtime herself, these emergencies can be met.”

Prudence goes on to explain how she developed her own freelance career as an interior designer while juggling childcare, household and getting paid help when she could. Its pretty amazing to think that almost 100 years later, some things have not really changed that much.

Recently this blog has gone from being a once-a-week posting to once a month. Its been hard to find time to write, as  I’ve been juggling my job with looking after a small person and a big one, as theres been a lot of illness at home. Plus I’ve been juggling deadlines and fitting in making a new piece of work for a show that opened last week.

My practice has been increasingly mobile, as for the past 2 months I have been without a studio, so I’ve been working in cafes when Abie is napping, or on the sofa after he’s in bed. At a family gathering I was making an embroidery piece sat on the sofa and a relative remarked how I looked like a ‘prim and proper lady’. This made me think about how certain traditions of crafting are viewed as typically feminine by others (men) and as somehow inert, and how in fact they enable you to sit there overhearing conversations and thinking improper thoughts.

I’ve thought again about the quote about the pram in the hall being the enemy of good art and have recently read about how what makes people ‘great’ artists is being able to be focused and not get distracted. It is hard for me to find focused time but when I do have time I use it in as focused a way as I can. And I’m also trying to work with the distractions.I realise increasingly how much time and space to work are privileges.

Abie’s playing has expanded beyond the field of the playmat, so I decided to draw the scattering of objects across the whole of our downstairs. He’s been really into displacing objects, shoes, bottles, spices, whatever he can get his hands on. This week he found a box of tea which he deconstructed, scattered and ate through the tea bags resulting in an interesting pattern of leaves. Now it looks like we are moving house in the new year, a further displacement is on the horizon. I’ve also got a new studio space. All this feels both unsettling and also exciting: the process of sorting, clearing, packing and moving opening up new spaces and possibilities.