Happy Day to the Artist Mother

Posted on | May 10, 2009 |

At the Saturday morning drawing class Maggie, mother of four boys, presented me with this beautiful hand-stitched broach, a portrait of me she made from a blind contour drawing.  I’m so very touched by this gift and think I’ll frame it so I can see it every day  as it’s so full of life and fun, as is the artist.  I’ve just noticed that Maggie has included my favorite necklace in this portrait, a string of plastic beads in bright colors that I bought at the Tate Modern some years ago.  And also my specs!  I also like that I have both blue and purple hair.

Two other members brought in art they’d made to show us.  One an amazingly beautiful embroidered piece based on a blind contour drawing she did in class, and the other a series of very funny cartoons about swine flu.  I love that the members of this class do their own work and bring it in to share.

We did more blind contour drawings in class.  I was not completely on my toes, I must admit, because I blurted out that we don’t need to make a slavish likeness when we’re drawing people but I neglected to say that the real point of our drawing class, and of my upcoming book on drawing, is that through this practice we can learn to let our spirits shine through.  I’m always looking for spirit in art and it’s what we see in Maggie’s stitching here.  So often when we work very hard on getting things ‘right’ our spirit goes into hiding.  It can happen to me too when I’m drawing from life and not from imagination.

But it’s made me think of the bigger question, now it’s Mother’s Day.  On Tuesday I’m going at last to see the documentary film, Who Does She Think She Is? in Harvard Square.  It will soon be released on DVD, so watch for it.  I’ve been trying to see this film for six months and am taking my daughter with me.  The film talks about the journey of the woman artist, particularly the mother. How hard is it?  Well, it’s plenty hard.  First, something like 80% of art students are women.  Interesting.  But only 20% of artists showing in galleries are women.  Hmmmm.  Why, and why?

It seems to me that by the time young women are ready to go to college they’ve experienced enough of gender inequity, both overt and subtle, to have some doubts about expressing themselves fully.  This may be changing, and we’re working to make it so, but there are still plenty of women without power in this world.  Maybe this is what fuels the longing for so many women to go to art school and to find a way to true personal expression.  I think both men and women actually lose connection with the true self along the way through the simple expedient of disappointment and suffering that comes to us all.  It’s our life’s work to come to the place of childlike freedom and confidence again, I think, but with the acuity of experience thrown in.  Art ultimately becomes about more than personal expression when it intersects with our knowing of the world but it can be the fire that ignites the work.

But if we women artists have children we face a mountain of other challenges.  Art takes time and care; children take even more.  So, we chip away and try to keep the faith through all the challenges—financial, personal, temporal.  To be an artist is to learn the real meaning of faith—that it’s a choice we have to make over and over even when the road is long and it doesn’t look like the world gives a flying fig for what we’re doing.  We will notice in time the truly amazing ways in which we’re supported and that will give rise to a whole raft of other knowings.  It seems to me that life is always what matters most and is an art unto itself.  There is great happiness in our connections with our children.

And now for more good news—wow, we get so strong staying on the path of mothering and art.  We learn so much from our children and from our journey as mothers and artists.  We have spirit and we try to share it in all the ways we can in the faith that it matters and I believe it does.  So, thank you to my own bambini for being their wondrous selves.  I believe they’re on their way over this morning with breakfast.  Or perhaps they might just be showing up and I’ll be making pancakes for us all as in the past.  Either way, no complaints from me.  Happy Mother’s Day, sisters.  Never give up on what calls you.

3 hours later… The bambini arrived with homemade quiche, Italian bread and salad.  We drank Mimosas and told the usual stories.  They did say they thought they really couldn’t come again and have me make pancakes!  LOL.  Thanks, Anna and Nick—a great time!

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