Prove me wrong, please!
I don’t think there’s any way a woman can be both an artist and a mother.
To be an artist you need to be able to de-schedule, to stay up late, to extend hours, to break rules. You need to get into your own mind-space without interruption. You need to be able to go out on a limb.
To be a mother is the opposite. Your life is thoroughly routinized. Interruptions are a way of life. You need to absorb, echo, hold the life of a dependent little thing. You need to be the kid’s boundaries.
In art, you need to break down boundaries.
When you’re a mother, being an artist feels selfish.
When you’re an artist, being a mother is suicide.
When I was a kid, we had to tiptoe around my friend’s SoHo loft, because her father’s huge studio was behind the living room door. He came out for dinner. Her mother came home from her job as a corporate lawyer around then. There was a young au pair from Europe.
Prove me wrong. I know about Elizabeth Murray and Sally Mann, and, and, and, so bringing them up isn’t good enough.
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8 comments:
Etre une mère, c'est être co-créateur...de la Création!
Existe-t-il une oeuvre plus aboutit qu'un corps vivant? Q'une ame incarner dans la chair?
Vive les femmes! Bravo les Artistes.
BisouX pour toi Molly
Philippe ;)
Translation:
To be a mother, is to be a co-creator... of Creation!
Is there a work more perfect than a living body? Than a soul embodied in flesh?
Long live women! Hats off to the Artists
Philippe????? Quel Philippe? (Theillou?)
PS: Have to say, I've always had a hard time getting into the Mother/Goddess/Creator thing. When I talk about art, I'm talking about that abstract process of representation.
Philippe,
Les adresses mails que tu m'as envoye ne marchent pas....
I think you are right here. I have never found a way to be a FATHER and an artist, fearing that I would be too selfish of my time (I'm only passable, I think, as a husband and an artist). Thus I never had kids. For a woman, I think it is even more difficult --- when she has a conscience. It is a very difficult and scary decision. I don't know how people (who aren't stinking rich with a cook and nanny and cleaning person, etc.) find a way to do both.
Thanks for writing Mark.
I don't think the nanny and cook solution is very good, actually. Too many people in the house. Kids don't know who to attach to. And then, there's always the problem of entitlement.
Child Porn reported. Enjoy your jail time.
Ewww... kid porn. Reported.
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