Parenthood and Art Making

The demands on your time change as your baby grows, but the time is never truly your own anymore. When my son was first born, everyone said “oh, give it 6 months before you can go back to being an artist.” Then it was “give it a year.” Then “oh wait until he's in school full time.” Ha! Jokes on all of us, there is no such thing as full time school. There is ALWAYS a holiday. ALWAYS a week of minimum days. ALWAYS a virus going around. And we live in Los Angeles, we don’t even have snow days. And then of course, covid.

So, I found that momentum was hard (and is still hard) to maintain. As an introvert who needs lots of quiet, un-stimulated time, parenthood has been an intensive exercise in patience. It tests you in ways that you cannot begin to explain. I fail frequently. I think it goes without saying (but i will anyway) none of this was the fault of my son (he’s a dreamboat), or my situation (very patient husband), just the impatience of my own brain. 

The issue to me was this: How was I going to continue to be creative and make work, while also being present and available to my growing boy? How was I going to scratch the creative itch?

Enter a friend named Emily. (Hi Em!)  She had started doing embroidery and she encouraged me to try it. I was hooked. Embroidery was PORTABLE! Embroidery wasn’t a wet medium! The worst thing that could happen was a knot! I started with a few of the Sarah K. Benning patterns, a 1980’s stitch guide and I was on my way.

Very quickly I discovered that this was a fantastic way to be creative AND available to my child. I could take embroidery to his OT appointments. I could sit at the sandbox with him and stitch while he played. He also got to see me making things. Learning that the act of making was important to me and part of the values in our family. I was with him and he could play with me and talk to me, but I could also have some feeling of the Kathryn I used to be.  

Here are the things that embroidery has gifted me with:

-Marking time. Being able to see how the year has passed with the projects I have finished.

-Time spent with my kid as he grows (the gift of all gifts, TBH). There is nothing he cannot touch or try in the process. 

-Spending time making something beautiful feels like a productive day.

-An intimate relationship with the materials. As a lifelong lover of fabric, embroidery allows me to go slow and spend time with the cloth and the thread.

-It’s portable! Art on the go is really priceless.

-Embroidery can be for yourself, or gifts for others, or both. 

-Being part of a traditional space. For thousands of years, humans have decorated cloth to indicate status, geography and age. I like being a part of that history.

Would you try embroidery? What do you think it might give you?