When the headline “Strong Moms & Grandmothers Are the New Superheroes” crossed my desk recently from a prominent media outlet – I thought, “Yes, we ARE.”
There is a certain sense of achievement in some communities today. While we still have a long and challenging way to go in terms of women’s progress, many are celebrating the voice and strength of women on the national stage this week.
We cannot ignore the palpable excitement streaming through the airwaves as women, grandmothers, and women-of-color raise their allied voices. We cannot ignore that access to healthcare, safe birth, and children’s well-being is forefront on our minds. We cannot ignore our herstory or deny the anniversary of the ratification of women’s right to vote celebrated at the beginning of this week, Sunday, August 18th, representing 104 years of hard won American success.
Know Your HerStory
Wanna know more about world events in the context of the Suffragette movement and progress towards women’s right to vote in the USA? There are so many ways to learn more. Make a field trip to the home of the first Convention Days where Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott and others argued for women’s equality in Seneca Falls, NY. Or, head to NYC where the musical SUFFS is on Broadway for an extended run. If you can’t get to New York, you can still watch the more serious accounting of the movement in England online with the movie Suffragette (2025) or the depiction of Alice Paul and Lucy Burns who risked their lives for freedom in Iron Jawed Angels (2004) online. Women’s voices are everywhere. Or you can visit the Museum of Motherhood in St. Petersburg, FL and learn more about activist Sojourner Truth and the journey towards justice as well as the four waves of women’s activism in the maternal sphere.
Celebrating MoM’s Successes
Last week also represents an incredible month of successes for the Museum of Motherhood with our active team of volunteers, including Sierra Clark, Barbara Lynch, and Mary Havlock. These achievers demonstrated a whole lotta grit and hard work securing three grants that demonstrate MoM’s success in our local community.
We are beyond pleased to announce the Foundation for a Healthy St. Pete and Orlando Health Bayfront Hospital recognized the Museum of Motherhood as a partner through their new Catalytic Capacity-Building Grant with funding for $10,000. We are so incredibly proud! Thank you Sierra Clark for your hard work on this.
We are also pleased to announce a 1k award from the St. Pete Arts Alliance with Barbara Lynch & Hypatia Collaborative for bookkeeping and IT (in-kind services) with champion Mary Havlock
Is Mother Made Art the “Last Taboo?”
The New York Times headline August 16th 2024 stated that “Camille Henrot has filled a gap in the canon by investigating the labor of motherhood.” The article discusses this ‘new’ art form of art made by women who are mothers and how not much has been done in this arena. The author of the article, Sasha Weiss, goes on to state that Henrot “scoured books and the internet for images of breast-pumping” and that “because [motherhood] is still stigmatized in visual art [she] resists characterizing work as being about motherhood.”
At this point in the article I wish very much that the artist had accessed the work of Jess Dobkin‘s lactation station (2006) or Sarah Irvine’s Infant Feeding Log, the student researched exhibit online at the Museum of Motherhood depicting the work of artists representing themselves breastfeeding, or even the photographic work of Renee Cox, Yo Mama (1992–94) who “decided I’m going to give you pregnancy in your face and found inspiration there.” My point being, that the art of motherhood is a developing field established and thriving over last thirty years.
When the author perpetuated the interviewed artist’s statement that she had “stumbled into a gap in art history… and that while there’s no shortage of representations of mothers with children, Henrot could find few of mothers on their own,” I moaned. Not from happiness but from despair.
My question to Sasha Weiss (and to Camille Henrot), is – How do we stop perpetuating the invisibility of the art made by mothers about motherhood by refusing to notice, research, and share the great body of work that currently exists all around the world? Every time an new article, exhibit, or piece of literature is published that refuses -or is oblivious to- the great accomplishments of literally hundreds (if not thousands) of women at this point in herstory, the patriarchal stereotype that legitimate art is only exhibited in specific types of galleries and museums is perpetuated.
The Museum of Motherhood (USA) has been devoted to art about art made by women about their reproductive experience and labor since 2003. Other organizations include: Procreate Project (England), Spilt Milk Gallery (Scotland), Artist Parent Network (USA), A.M.M.A.A. Archive for Mapping Mother Artists in Asia, and multiple artist residencies that support, collaborate and share the art made by mothers about their identity, experiences, and labor. I hope somehow we might shift this narrative together, starting NOW.
~Martha Joy Rose, Founder, Director MoM
Call For Submissions
The Art Exhibition and Auction of October 2024. Read more about submitting art here (by August 31) for this auction and exhibition sponsored by OXH Gallery with Committee Chair Odeta Xheka and organized by MoM’s Executive Board members Courtney Kessel, Deanna Barcelona, Barbara Lynch and Anna Lieggi. [LINK]
25th Anniversary MoM Annual Arts & Academic Conference CFP is LIVE! The Conference is being organized under the leadership of Brittany DeNucci and our Academic and Conference committee. The Museum of Motherhood is calling all scholars, artists, and community members for presentations and papers on the subject of ‘Fun, Sex, & Crying Out Loud’. [LINK]
New Internships
Welcome Kayla Foster, woman, mother, student. Her project will include archival research, ethnographic interviews, and collaboration efforts with the University of Oklahoma and the Museum of Motherhood to identify the cultural postpartum practices and traditions of Hispanic mothers in the Southwestern United States. The research will be multigenerational resulting in a final research paper focused on her findings and discuss the importance placed on traditional postpartum practices.
You may remember Whetley Earnest who came to us at the beginning of the summer as a local high school junior, interested in pre-med. Whetley is still with us, volunteering at MoM and we couldn’t be prouder! Here she is pictured with friend and ally Lucky Leroy who is currently featured in a solo exhibit at The Factory in St. Pete in partnership with FloridaRama. Leroy is our local ‘King of Art’ and his exhibit titled Florida Famous is up through August in the gallery next to the Museum of Motherhood. Come visit – You will love it!
Hold the Date
Experience some of St. Pete’s most popular museums during Arts Alive! Free Museum Day on Saturday, September 21, 2024. Select St. Pete museums will waive admission fees to allow the community to experience some of the fine art that makes St. Pete a premier arts destination. Arts Alive! Free Museum Day is produced by the City of St. Petersburg, the St. Petersburg Arts Alliance, and participating cultural organizations based on the currently paused National Smithsonian’s Free Museum Day. [LINK]
We will be moving to gallery row. But, not yet! We are awaiting word from our new landlords about the projected move date, but right now, it looks as if we will remain in our current location across from FloridaRama and DaddyCool until at least mid-September. We’ll keep you posted on progress for sure!
*M/other (noun): is a self-identified individual who is relationally connected through pregnancy, birth, surrogacy, genetics, care-work, and/or adoption. Historically female; they are one who divides (time, labor, emotion, and/or genetic material) and are paradoxically increased by the experience. Best explained by the equation: me + other (m/other) a mother is one who is connected, or disconnected, to another, genetically through procreative activity or linked through identity, care-work, and/or association. This special relational status incorporates the phenomenon that motherhood is otherhood, which is its most fundamental principle. While gender identity has gone through multiple identity shifts in recent years – and MoM is super supportive of all folx.
Mother-made art recognizes the works and endeavors of those making fine and performing arts who are mothers and those whose work is impacted by, or is focused on, experiences of pregnancy, birth, care-work, fertility, loss, adoption, fostering, surrogocy, and m/otherhood inclusive of all reproductive identities. This includes artistic interpretations highlighting the lifespan of makers of maternal experience, action, matrescence, and embodiment, within personal and relationally organized emotions, biologies, technologies, and behaviors. [LINK]