Table of Contents
Landmarks
Page List
The
Motherhood
of Art
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ISBN 978-0-7643-5653-7
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Copyright 2020 by Marissa Huber and Heather Kirtland
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019946894
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Designed by Ashley Millhouse
Type set in Agenda
Front cover photographs by Kimberly Michelle Gibson, Alycia Jiskra, Steven Cotton, Jay McLaughlin, Julia Stotz, Erika Leitch, Amy Tangerine, and courtesy of Sonia Brittain, Karina Bania, and Meredith C. Bullock.
Back cover photographs by Little Cuddlebug Photography, Zo Suelen, and courtesy of Karina Bania.
Endsheets: Jungle, digital illustration by Marissa Huber.
ISBN: 978-0-7643-5918-7
978-1-5073-0121-0 (EPUB)
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To Don, Violet, and Jack, who inspire me every day. To the strong women in my life: Mom, Sally, Carrie, and Peggy, whose examples give me something to live up to and whose support helps me maintain my studio practice. To Andy, with whom I share a love of art. To my dad, who always believed in me and never wanted me to stop creating.
HK
To the loves of my life, Henry and Sloane; being your mama is my greatest joy. To Mike, who loves and accepts me just as I am. To my mom, who encouraged our creativity and believed in us always. To my dad, who passed down a love of writing, and the moxie to question everything. To my brother Andrew, who is always in my heart and makes me braver.
MH
To our creative community at Carve Out Time for Art: the generous, talented, and encouraging group of artists without whom this book wouldnt be possible.
Foreword
BY DANIELLE KRYSA
Mothers cannot be artists. Your family will need all of your time and energy. Youll be much too busy for creativity. Its selfish to focus on your artwork. Nobody will take you seriously.
Weve all heard various forms of this nonsense. Movies, nosy relatives, and the occasional very poorly researched magazine article have been saying these things for years. None of its true, by the way, but unfortunately there are a lot of people who believe you cant have a life that combines both motherhood and art. Well, as the title suggests, each page of this book contains cold, hard proof of the opposite.
When I found out I was pregnant in the fall of 2005, I was thrilled. I threw myself into the joys of motherhood before my son, Charlie, even arrived. I decorated his room, wandered through every trendy baby shop I could find, and wore clothes that were sure to show off my growing bump.
Somewhere during this obsessive almost ten monthsyes, he was very latemy mother pulled me aside. She is a painter and actually supported our little family when I was a newborn and my father was finishing his PhD. Anyway, she wisely advised, Once the baby comes, you need to make an effort to have something in your life that is solely for you. You need something that is still very much Danielle; otherwise you can easily slip into being only Charlies Mom. In that moment, I didnt understand what she meant. All I wanted was to be Charlies Mom. However, skip ahead six months after my bundle of joy arrived, and I realized what a brilliant mother I have. I did need something, and, for me, that something is and always has been art.
I took this challenge down two different avenueswriting about other artists through my blog, The Jealous Curator, and focusing on my own artwork. I began making small mixed-media pieces while my baby napped. I did several daily practice series (usually on tiny 4-inch canvases because they were easy to get out and tuck away) that documented my day with Charlie. Sometimes those pieces were about insane meltdowns on the way home from the park, while others captured his daily discoveriesthe magical wonders of crawling on grass, for example! I was literally combining my experiences as a new mother with my artwork. Did I expect any of these works to be acquired by MoMA? No, but I was successfully holding on to Danielle while also being Charlies Mom.
As I just mentioned, I also started my contemporary art blog during these years. It was early 2009, and Charlie was not quite three. I needed a way to feel connected to other artistsnot just the usual crew at our many Mom n Tot groups. Very quickly, I found that the majority of my posts were about female artists, not consciously, but because I was so inspired by their subject matter, materials, color choices, and, most importantly, the effort they were clearly putting into their careers. I wanted to be them when I grew up! Wait, I was a grown-up. Time to dig a little deeper. I dont suppose these talented artists, whom I desperately wanted to emulate, were also mothers? Yes, so many of them were! And guess what? Not only were they making work, they were also showing in galleries, selling, and living a life as an artist. Hold onhad those movies, nosy relatives, and badly researched articles been wrong? Yep.
Here we are today, and my tiny baby is now a teenager whos taller than I am. Not only is it time to take him pants shoppingagainits also high time we get rid of these ridiculous myths: Mothers cannot be artists. Your family will need all of your time and energy. Youll be much too busy for creativity. Its selfish to focus on your artwork. Nobody will take you seriously. Ugh. In hindsight, I wish I hadnt allowed any of those false statements into my head even for one second. Well, thanks to authors such as Marissa Huber and Heather Kirtland, there is now a book in the world that is changing the narrative.
