A good snapshot stops a moment from running away. ~Eudora Welty
These are the creatures that occupy the corners of my son’s mind. They fly and fall, battle, brawl, capture, rescue, conquer. The magic of the circumstances may change, one day wizards and dragons, the next space aliens or robotic dinosaurs, but he is always the hero.
Bobby is my daughter’s best friend. He is her love. He is her security. And the intensity of her feelings for this filthy scrap of fabric blows me away. The dirtier and smellier he gets, the more she loves him. She has this way of holding Bobby while she sucks her thumb, with one hand pressing the cloth up to her nose and the other hand scratching his satin border . . . and it is like there is nothing else in the world but her and Bobby. Nothing else matters.
Over the past 2 years I have had the honor of working with 3 amazing women – artists, friends, fellow mothers – first on an exhibition at the University of North Florida and now in Savannah at S.P.A.C.E. Gallery. I credit these women with getting me back in the studio again, and that is no small feat! When my children were born, I was drained – physically, emotionally, creatively. It sounds cliched but I wanted to focus on my kids while they were small – that time is so short and so precious. But once you step away from making art, it can be so, incredibly difficult to step back into it. Carving out the space for making art – both in terms of time and, perhaps even more importantly, in terms of focus, energy, attention, creativity – is never easy. There are so many other things to be done and making art can seem so self-indulgent. Selfish.
But I have come to realize that making this time for myself and my art is important not only for my sanity but also for the image I am projecting to my children. They know Daddy is an artist. But Mommy . . . . Mommy is Mommy. While I can’t think of anything I would rather be than their mother, it is not all I am. I am an artist, and even if I stopped making art for a while, it is still a huge part of who I am. And frankly, I think it is ok for me to be selfish sometimes.
So I’m here, back at work and making images I am proud of. I’ve been making photographs lately, which is something I never really anticipated. It has been hard for me, somehow, to accept this process as I do not consider myself a photographer. I have a lot to learn. But I love it, and I love the images I am making. And I guess that’s what really matters.
In order to continue working, women artists have not only had to resist the external attitude that their lives are not the stuff of art, but at the same time deal with the pain and guilt of being torn in two (R. Power, The Divided Heart).
Four Squared is an exhibition by four artist-mothers and their experiences of making art amongst the chaos of raising young children. The experience of being a mother is also the subject of their art – what the artists describe as the push & pull of motherhood, domesticity and creativity. It is work created on an emotional rollercoaster, while burning the midnight oil, with the use of favors from friends, with the constant awareness of dishes to be washed.
Unknowingly, each artist has contributed to negating the burning question posed by poet Alice Ostriker – why has motherhood been ruled out as a valid theme of art? (It) is, after all, Ostriker continues, an immersion in the real stuff of life…a privileged position from which to encounter both the smallest, most nuanced interactions of daily life, and the most profound questions about the nature of existence.
The artists in Four Squared give us a glimpse into the real stuff of life.
