Notes from an Artist/Mother, part 1
“When she became a mother she “felt chained to her child, unable to finish a sentence, think, or sleep, lost her sense of being agile, capable, quick, self-reflective.” As she explored this new state, new ways of seeing emerged. “The child's relentlessly unpredictable and extreme presence forced her into an appreciation of experiences she had skimmed over before.” She felt ‘heightened sentience, a renewed awareness of objects, of one's own emotional range and emotional robustness… a renewed encounter with oneself as a speaking subject.”
Julie Phillips quoting Lisa Baraister in “The Baby on the Fire Escape - Creativity, Motherhood, and the Mind-Baby Problem.”
When an artist becomes a mother, are they still an artist? Is a mother still the person they were before? Until you become a parent, it is hard to describe just how much of your brainpower will be required to focus and monitor the baby. Just last week, at a doctors appointment, they asked my occupation. I wrote “artist/mother.” The doctor laughed and said, “Aren’t you a mother first? A mother/artist?” I told him no, because I have always been an artist, I have only been a mother for 9 years. I had to wonder if he ever asked a man that same question… I digress.
In parenthood, the focus you once had for work, or creative pursuits, or goal setting, or development will be gone. Forever split by the necessity and urgency of a new childhood. It is well established that creative work needs lots of time and space for simply thinking. Gertrude Stein said, “It takes a lot of time to be a genius, you have to sit around so much doing nothing, really doing nothing.” Many writers and researchers have written about the need for getting into a “flow state.” Creation and innovation happen with years of practice and work, but also with a fair amount of unplanned daydreaming.
Motherhood can be isolating, tiring, emotional and long. Often, one parent spends the lion’s share of time with an infant, toddler, and young child. While it is a gift, it is also a disorienting season of one's life. “Who am I anymore?” can be the overwhelming feeling of the moment. Parenting really is “the longest shortest time.” When you are in the middle of it, it seems eternal, but you blink and another year has passed, new shoes are needed, the old toys are on the shelf. I would put forth that if you are an artist, or creative person, this time might feel more trying. Artists are reflexive thinking about making things. Working on drawings in their brains, noticing the color of the sunlight, considering textures, and sorting through emotions around that work. All of that thinking goes out the window when the baby arrives on the scene. Now your focus is divided. And while the health and happiness of the baby is of the utmost, you might still like a little of that thinking back. A little bit of that creative brainstorming, the energy to notice color and light.
To be continued… next week.
