I am also stimulated to talk about my experience of parenting and working as an artist. My first consideration is that I was a mother for 11 years before I even thought of becoming an aristAll through university I tried to leave the college early in order to leave my children with a babysitter as little as possible and did all my essays late at night after they were asleep.
The choices I have made after graduation also respect the fact that my priority is the family: my studio is at home allowing me to save on commute time and to work every minute of spare time I have while the children are at school, or even snatching some short intervals during their tv time. I choose to show my work in events that are local to London or maximum 2 hours away so I don’t have to spend nights away from home and we have a motor home to go to Potfest or Rufford once a year as a family trip.
This arrangement suites me even if sometimes it brings isolation from the artist world and a strange feeling of living in two incommunicable worlds. I do fantasize about doing a residency abroad or renting a studio somewhere in London but I know that this could have been the route if I had started this as my first career.
It is often difficult to compare myself with many artists who are may be younger that me but have worked for 20 years and so much more accomplished, but then I realize that the happiness of my children and a strong and balanced family is definitely one of my achievements.
I have not written for many months, and things have progressed a lot.
A letter from Andrew Bryant yesterday encouraged me to post this piece I had prepared a month ago.
What happened was that I realized I needed help and first I went to a therapist for few months and I discovered with her help where some of my blocks and recurrent problems are .
I also had few sessions with a life coach who helped me to find targets for my practice. This was a much more practical input than the psychologist and with her help a lot of things have moved.
• I threw away all my seconds and I started making pieces only for myself: this brought the amazing discovery that if a cup is for me I know how I want it and it has to be perfect, so now I will keep only things that I would be happy with.
• I started to try new shapes and develop new ideas. To do this I decided to join a pottery class run by en ex Harrow colleague, just to have use of a different studio and a place to throw stoneware without contaminate my wheel. I find this liberating and I met another mother artist in a similar life stage and this friendship has given me the feeling of not being alone in the struggle.
• Making a new body of work gives me also enthusiasm to continue making my stock for the summer shows, and having paid for the studio place, I have to go every week to commit to the new work and perfect it.
• Reading books on the fear of creating and in particular Trust the process An artist’s guide to letting go by Shaun Mc Niff have helped me realize that the uncertainty I feel is normal that all artists feel lost and insecure during the work and often satisfied only for a very short time at the end of a work. Basically the uncertainty is the norm and the only way to proceed is to just doing it.
