Category: Featured Artists

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Art Caregiving Education Featured Featured Artists International MOM Art Annex

Pandemic Parenting with Amy Swartz & The Drawing Board, by Rachael Grad

Amy Swartz on The Drawing Board for MOM project. Amy is an artist, professor, and mother of 2. Here she is interviewed by Rachael Grad for the final series in our online Pandemic Parenting Exhibit. This is the final presentation for the online exhibit Pandemic Parenting at the Museum of Motherhood, August 2022. The MoM team thanks Rachael for her excellent curation and dissemination of this series.

“Being a mom is giving your daughter the best air pods.”

RG: How did Motherhood change your art?

AS: I need force and pressure to create things. After grad school I was featured in Canadian Art, NOW magazine and other publications. Then my mom died and I got pregnant. Not having deadlines after grad school, it was easy to get derailed. I was gutted, grieving, and stopped making art when I first became a mom. My second child was born 2 years later.

I went about 7 years without showing work. My husband is a carpenter/cabinetmaker who made me a studio in the backyard. I started collecting dead insects – the first was a dragonfly that looked dead and alive at same time. I put together about 20 insects in different boxes, for example, jewelry boxes. I attached one of the army man heads from my husband’s childhood toy soldier collection on a moth. Then I made an army of hundreds of the creatures. My husband made containers for them. I had nowhere to show them and no website.

A parent at my kids’ school is a photographer and took photos in exchange for keeping one. He introduced me to his gallerist friend Jamie Angell, who later visited my studio and showed the work. My children were youngish when I was making that work and being included in lots of shows. When we started The Drawing Board, I started focusing more on that collaborative work. 

The-Drawing-Board_Motion-to-Hum_2020_collaborative-onlien-drawing-using-DrawChat-during-_The-Drawing-Board-Meeting-7

RG: How did you start The Drawing Board?

AS: I knew JJ Lee from graduate school at York University. When I started teaching at the Toronto School of Art, I met Natalie Waldburger. I became an instructor at OCAD University where JJ and Natalie were also teaching. We used to go to a bar right across the street from Michaels, where they gave crayons. We started drawing together at meals/drinks to get out our frustrations. We went over each other’s drawings, crossing things out and redrawing. We found that we worked well together and officially started The Drawing Board in 2016.

It started out more performative and is now more collaborative with other invited artists. In our last show at the Red Head Gallery, we worked with 9 artists who gave assignments or drawings to us. The three of us completed the assignments together.

RG: Why did you start working in this way?

AS: We found ourselves effected by the political issues, intense atmosphere, power structure, and inequity in University meetings. Afterward, we doodled intensely as a creative and healthy way to safely process. We used the fodder and energy to make work. We looked at tensions among creative people within a bureaucracy that guides teachers. We play with grids and office supplies that talk about superstructure.

Pandemic-Parenting_The-Drawing-Board-Poster

RG: How often do you meet?

AS: Attempts to put in a structure haven’t worked. We’re very different but like a family. Somehow, we make work and do things together around our kids’ and our work. We think of something to apply for or do and get it done. We can do a lot very quickly together, for example, we write and get grants and funding in a very organic manner. The Drawing Board has a studio space at OCAD University. We will apply for a show and grant this year if nothing happens with our families.

RG: Do you have any individual projects planned?

AS: I haven’t had a show on my own in 2 years. The last one was cancelled because of the pandemic.

RG: How has your participation in The Drawing Board changed your individual art practice?

AS: In some ways, it hasn’t changed my practice. I’m in “Amy mode” when working alone. But I’m more apt to do things more quickly I hadn’t before tried. I can be a perfectionist on my own. Now I think of Nat and JJ when working on my own and am more open. My children have really needed me in the last few years. I don’t have words for my current work and am not ready to share it.

RG: Is there anything you would change or do differently?

AS: I am slowing down now. I wish that I had slowed down earlier with my kids, family, education, and everything! I want to be more present and patient. Both of my parents died young and didn’t meet my kids. My grandmother died at 103 of COVID during the first few weeks of the pandemic. I wish I hadn’t been so busy in my mind. In teaching this year, I will take out an assignment out of every class to give more time for my students. We need more space to have fallow time as artists. We need to look at the window and not be bombarded with stuff.

RG: What surprised you about being a mother artist?

AS: As a mom, I kept thinking I knew about stereotypes of my children’s stages. Every time it’s not what I imagined. These beings that are my children are not like me at all. They come from me but are not me. I look at kids and am always pleasantly surprised.

See full exhibit Link

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Pandemic Parenting Interview with Batnadiv Hakarmi, by Rachael Grad

RG: How did motherhood change your art?

BH: To my surprise, when I became a mother, my work became so much more collaborative. Before I had children, I worked alone in the studio on personal projects. I used the space whenever I wanted, including late at night.The idea of sharing did not work with my entire approach to art-making. The changes began during my first pregnancy, when I had to change mediums because I developed an allergy to turpentine. After my first child was born, I worked at home painting small works in watercolor on a desk. Later, I started working with other moms.

All my support came from other mothers. I was lucky enough to be part of the group “A Studio of Her Own” which included a lot of other young moms with kids. A few of us got together to rent collaborative studio space that was child-friendly, and people used it at different times.  We did a series of site-specific projects together, working on big murals and projects in historic buildings and public spaces.  I love working big and not having to clean up a studio space. My friend Julia Aronson and I did a series of collaborative murals. We discussed the idea, then alternated painting days  with each other, in a kind of visual game of Exquisite Corpse. We had to let go of control and let someone else in. We kept a blog about our last project [Link below].

At home my kids get into my art materials, so I got them their own sketchbooks and supplies. They still always want mine though. 

RG: Were the changes in motherhood a surprise?

BH: I knew something was going to change but didn’t know how. I foresaw needing to work smaller. The opening of working collaboratively with other mothers was a good surprise.

RG: How do you fit in studio time with kids?

BH: My three children are now in kindergarten, pre-school, and daycare, respectively. Until each baby was a year old, I hired a babysitter once a week so I could have painting time, and I attended a late-night sculpture group. During the pandemic, for a year I didn’t have childcare so couldn’t do any art, except what I called my ‘stolen sketch time’. Before then, I found ways to paint or draw daily.

RG: Was there a big shift going from one child to 2?

BH: Yes. Two is more complicated because there’s a toddler to run after. I am always outnumbered. But for me the biggest shift was going from 0 to one child. The actual transition into motherhood has been transformative.

RG: What books, groups, web resources do you recommend?

BH: I find that working with other mothers is the most helpful way to navigate creativity amidst the chaos of motherhood. I am part of a wonderful poetry group called Mama Poets Write who used to meet once every two weeks for a night of writing. For art practice, I have artist friends who I would meet regularly. I worked with Julia Aronson on the mural projects and I participate in a regular sculpture group of women of different ages. I found my tribe and painting friends after having kids.

RG: Is there anything you would change or do differently?

BH: I was teaching before the pandemic in 3 different places. During the pandemic, it was a real struggle to teach on zoom with kids at home. I didn’t go back to teaching until after lockdown was over because it was too difficult to get childcare. I used to teach art at Brandeis University in the summer and I really miss it. I found there isn’t that much flexibility in teaching so between lockdowns and quarantines, I transitioned to giving workshops and doing freelance editing. The work does take away from my art practice – it’s a constant juggle to make time and space.  

RG: What’s your biggest struggle?

BH: A big struggle- quoting Virginia Woolf and her ‘Room of One’s Own’ – is a prescient issue. The lack of space for a mother-artist is huge. I need a space for myself to maintain my art practice. Yet, now even my bedroom is not my own. When you are pregnant, even your own body is not your own. I was never alone during the pandemic and I would like to find another collaborative space. Our original space was located in Beit Alliance, a subsidized cultural center. We had an amazing synergy and did some exceptional projects. But, as mothers of young children, we were not typical artists. We look or behave like people assume artists do. We didn’t attend late night events. We set up alternate events which were well attended, but our landlords did not renew our lease. I do think there is some discrimination against mother-artists and caretakers. I’m currently working in Ha Mifal where my sculpture group has a residency and exhibition. I am sure new things will arise as the future unfolds.

Blog Project with Julia and Batnadiv is here.

Full exhibit with Batnadiv at MoM is here [LINK]

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Art Featured Featured Artists Residency

Pandemic Parenting Exhibit with Rachael Grad and Natalie Majaba Waldburger

“My artwork grows itself like children. I set the path, feed them as needed, and create the right environment, then you’re good to go.  Monitor and tweak as needed. You just enjoy what happens after that. There are many unknowns after that but that is part of the joy of trusting and letting go.” ~ Natalie Majaba Waldburger

Natalie Waldburger Pandemic Parenting Exhibit

Bio: Natalie Majaba Waldburger’s current art practice is open-disciplinary and seeks to understand the complexities of respectful collaboration and participatory work in the context of anti-colonial research.  In recent years, institutional critique has become the focus for collaborative art practices as a co-founding member of The Drawing Board.  As an Associate Professor at OCAD U, Natalie has served as Chair for a number of programs in the faculty of Art including the inaugural Ada Slaight Chair of Contemporary Painting and Print Media and, most recently, Interim Chair of Sculpture/Installation and Life Studies and Grievance Chair for OCADFA.  The Life Studies area was the focus of Natalie’s appointment at OCAD U.  Life Studies is a specialization positioned in the Faculty of Art that brings together the arts, sciences, and humanities to cultivate interdisciplinary studio art practices.  These pedagogical approaches speak to Natalie’s own art research practice positioned at the intersection of sustainability, social justice, and ecologically-respectful art practices. [See full exhibit LINK]

Interview with Rachael Grad:

RG: How has your art changed during the pandemic?

NW: My work changed in the last year. I don’t make my own work when teaching, except for the collaborative work with The Drawing Board in which we talk about kids, work, and everything that’s happening in our lives. We are all mothers, teachers, administrators and artists and The Drawing Board became a way to support each other beyond the studio and outside of the institution.  It is an entity and a collective that is porous by necessity and a way to support each other as whole people with intersecting pressures that come with the different roles we have. The Drawing Board is where we can be silly, make commentary and give ourselves permission to try things that might fail. I am currently returning from a sabbatical from teaching at OCAD University. This opportunity allowed me to get out of the school/work grind, go offline, get back to materiality in art.

RG: What was your most recent collaborative project?

NW: The Drawing Board had a collective exhibition at the Red Head Gallery in Toronto during the height of the Omicron wave of the pandemic. We bubbled together and created work in the gallery. We invited 9 other artists to zoom in and participate. Six out of nine of the artists were moms. The guests gave us assignments and directions while we made art together in the gallery. We allow life to come in as commentary as well in our work –  the things that happen in our personal lives, our working lives and our individual artistic pursuits.

RG: What was your most recent individual project?

NW: I just finished a Bio-Art Residency at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. It was 6 weeks on my own, which was difficult for my family. I worked in a Level 1 Bio Lab.

RG: How did you get interested in biology and lab work?

NW: I started art and science work right out of OCAD seeking out anatomical studies in my figurative painting. Then I got interested in other scientific questions about what makes us human, like the human genome project. I later moved into installations then microscopic and cellular based works. I explore things that grow and ways in which materials grow themselves like having a child where you set the conditions, care and nurture the beings, and let them grow the way they want to. The surrounding environment impacts this particular work. My work has used wheatgrass, bioplastics, mycelium (the roots system of a mushroom). For my most recent project, I took molds of Victorian ceiling medallions that represent traditional Toronto architecture and also colonialism. I then filled them with mycelium while in the lab, allowing them to grow into these ornate forms.

RG: Why mycelium?

NW:  I wanted to continue with a material that, once started, would grow autonomously and introducing an element of the unknown to the process.  After doing some research I found that mycelium was used in research to predict the growth patterns of tumours. Because mycelium grows more quickly, in 2 to 3 weeks, it is a useful predictor of tumour behaviour. This resonated with me because my son has a brain tumor, diagnosed at 9 years old. The symptoms manifested initially as paralysis effecting his face, then arms and legs on the right side. He had to learn to walk again and undergo surgery, rehab and chemotherapy. It’s been challenging and yet amazing to see him grappling with this while still being a kid in school and eventually succeeding getting almost straight A’s in school. The disease has been unpredictable, and we never know what to expect. I’ve learned so much about Neurodiversity and navigating both the health and education systems.

RG: will you continue your research now that you’re back in Toronto?

NW: I’ll continue exploring but I don’t have the same lab access in Toronto. Life Studies will be able to build a mini-lab through a generous donation from the Joan and Clifford Hatch Foundation so that I can introduce some of these processes to Life Studies students. We can purchase an autoclave, which is a big giant sterilizing machine, alongside our current microscopes.  Next for our order is DNA sequencing equipment and growing equipment for plants. Interestingly, Life Studies was partnering with MaRS and Sick Kids and while on a tour of the SickKids research area I saw the lab housing my son’s tumor, two years after his surgery. Frequently, my research has mirrored and predicted what happens in my life.

RG: What’s next for you?

NW: In October my most recent residency work will be shown at Art Quarters on St. Clair Avenue West in Toronto. The works, alongside mosses and terrariums will likely be installed on walls, not hung from the ceiling as in New York.

RG: Anything else you’d like to share on motherhood and art?

NW: Being a mother is why I explored this way of making. At first, I used a paintbrush and encaustic – body-like materials that do their own thing. Having a child encouraged me to give up more control and make the unknown even more the driver of this work. I enjoy being open to results and thinking about how both science and art practices speak to each other. My materials are experimental, and I employ the same letting go and relinquishing of control that is necessary in the collaborative process and in parenting.

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Art Featured Featured Artists Residency

JJ Lee – Featured Artist Pandemic Parenting Online Exhibit

The Pandemic Parenting Exhibit is curated by Rachael Grad as part of her Remote Residency with MoM. Each week during the month of August, Rachael interviews and collects information about four outstanding mother artists and their practices. Then, her interviews will appear here and also link to the exhibit page online.

Pandemic Parenting FULL EXHIBIT ONLINE

“My work as a professor is to challenge the status quo and show that there are different ways to be an artist.” ~ JJ Lee

RG: What is your current focus?

JL: I have an upcoming exhibition next June through August in a Halifax Museum. I went to Halifax, Nova Scotia, to clear out my parents’ house and found all kinds of things. I started drawing based on these discoveries and proposed a show to the Museum. I was going back and forth to Halifax while my mom was sick. My recent work is about losing my mom and ancestry. The drawings of my mom were emotional and healing.

RG: How does being a mother impact your work?

JL: My 15-year-old non-binary child Mei came to Halifax during one trip while I was taking care of my dad. Mei was a comfort to me. The death of my mom and Chinese funeral rituals were a learning experience. I brought my dad back to Toronto to live. I have 4 siblings and am the youngest. The past few years during the pandemic have been an incredible amount of caretaking a child and my parents: first my mom and then my dad. Caretaking takes up an incredible amount of time and energy.

  • JJ Lee Works
  • JJ Lee Works
  • JJ Lee Works

RG: How did this parent caregiving come into your art?

JL: Caregiving changed my work, making and understanding. I started drawing on paper from my grandfather’s laundry that I found in my parents’ house. For a while I couldn’t do work on my mom so I did work about my grandfather. It’s difficult to capture my mom and her essence from photos. I started drawing on the found paper. Physical impressions of my mom’s writing in Chinese letters started coming through the paper. Intergenerational trauma is passed through DNA. I feel that that this show is not my show. For 30 years, the art was mine but not this new work. I am making drawings of my mom on laundry paper, my mom sewing in a shrine, and my grandmother and her friend. My recent work is about matriarchy and Chinese culture. My grandmother ran the house. There is a tradition in Chinese culture of the eldest son and his wife moving in and taking care of the son’s parents. I used to have a different impression of my grandmother then later learnt from family that she had had difficult life.

RG: How did your work change when you became a mother?

JL: My work changed when my baby was born but became more interesting when I started collaboratively working with Mei. My child taught me a lot including forcing me to face my own biases about art. Mei draws freely in her mark-making and stories.

RG: How do you balance creating, parenting, and teaching?

JL: My first exhibition with Mei was when Mei was 7 years old. My next exhibition didn’t include Mei and Mei wasn’t happy about it! At the time I was the Chair of First Year Painting and Drawing at OCAD University with a tenure track job. We realized later that Mei is hard of hearing and is autistic, so the show was about non-verbal communication. I was drawing on tags that represent labels about being autistic, Chinese, Canadian, and others. Then Mei ripped up my drawings into tiny pieces. I felt upset, violated, and destroyed but then Mei and I made a collaborative work out of putting the pieces together.

RG: Do you still collaborate with Mei now that she’s a teenager?

JL: Mei no longer wants to collaborate or get feedback on her art from me. Mei is part of the new digital generation.

RG: Are you collaborating in other ways?

JL: My work expanded through collaboration with dance-choreographer sister and The Drawing Board. In The Drawing Board collective with Natalie Waldburger and Amy Swartz, I lose individuality and have the freedom to make what I want. We can’t separate being moms and creatives. The Drawing Board formed because we didn’t have time to make our own work. The art practice responds to what’s happening through our lives. My work as a professor is to challenge the status quo and show that there are different ways to be an artist.

Full JJ LEE EXHIBIT ONLINE
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Meet the Newest Artist Resident at MoM: Gloria Munoz

We are excited to announce our newest Guest Artist in Residence, Gloria Muñoz! During her residency, Gloria hopes to focus on developing her novel which is set in 1940s Colombia during the period known as La Violencia. With elements of fabulism, historical fiction, and eco-poetics, the story of two sisters who are displaced by violence and left to fend for themselves is a testament to how we can experience wonder, and even magic, after loss.

Continue reading to find out more about Gloria.

Gloria Muñoz is a Colombian-American writer, literary translator, and advocate for multilingual literacy and writing. She was awarded the Academy of American Poets 2019 Ambroggio Prize and the Gold Medal Florida Book Award. She has also been honored by the Highlights Foundation’s 2022 Diverse Verse Fellowship, the Macondo Workshop, Lumina’s Multilingual Nonfiction Writing Award, a Las Musas Mentorship for Latine and nonbinary authors, a New York State Summer Writers Institute Fellowship, a St. Petersburg Arts Alliance Muse Award, a Creative Pinellas Grant, the Estelle J. Zbar Poetry Prize, the Bettye Newman Poetry Award, a Gen Yes Doris Duke Foundation Artist Award, a Think Small to Think Big Artist Grant, and a St. Petersburg Arts Alliance’s Jim Rolston Professional Development Grant. Gloria was part of the inaugural Tin House YA workshop and has presented her writing, research, and advocacy work at conferences, colleges, public schools, and book festivals across the United States and Latin America. Her writing has appeared in Puerto del Sol, VIDA Review, Acentos Review, Lumina, the Rumpus, Yes Poetry, Juke Joint, Best New Poets, Sweet, Burrow Press, Cosmonauts Avenue, Entropy, Wildness, Cagibi, and elsewhere. Muñoz is also the author of the chapbook Your Biome Has Found You. She holds degrees from Sarah Lawrence College and the University of South Florida. A proponent of cross-disciplinary collaboration, Gloria has worked alongside botanists, musicians, dancers, historians, classicists, visual artists, conservationists, and neuroscientists. She is a co-founder of Pitch Her Productions and she is one-half of the songwriting team Moonlit Musíca. Most days she writes, teaches, and works with environmental nonprofits.

Also, Announcing This Week:

MoM is also pleased to announce, a conversation about the film, Adventures in Miscarriage with director Cheryl Furjanic, who presented her film trailer at the MoM Conference in 2022 – in person in St. Petersburg in March!

She received incredible feedback and has just launched a new version of the trailer and a summer fundraiser for the film. Here is the link. https://watch.showandtell.film/watch/adventures-in-miscarriage-summer-fundraiser

It will be up until July 31st. Then, on Wednesday, July 27th at 6:30pm ET, she will be hosting a conversation about the film and the current state of miscarriage care. Here’s the link for that: https://nyu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_1xNcM1coSLmlMZAJCKXDlA

We are excited to support and view this important film which offers a perspective into this generally underreported experience!

If you are interested in applying for a guest residency here at MoM, please go to our website HERE: https://bit.ly/3uRgugm  to find out more. BE SURE TO HURRY! Spots have been filling FAST! We hope that future tours of the space will be available soon, but they are by appointment only in Artist Enclave Historic Kenwood: “where art lives.”

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Remote Artist Residency with Rachael Grad: This August at MoM

Rachael Grad is a mom of three and former lawyer who has studied and worked in the US, France, Italy, Hong Kong, and Toronto. Grad left practicing law to study painting full-time at the New York Studio School and New York University (NYU) before transferring to OCAD University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Trained as an observational painter, Grad has focused on colourful painting that blurs the distinction between abstract, figurative, and representational styles.

Recently her art practice has expanded to incorporate digital painting and collage to further recreate her observational drawing and painting. Grad combines her experience as a mother, former lawyer, and traveler into her artwork, creating art that reflects parenting moments. Her current art series include “Motherhood Hit Me Like A Train” works on paper that use trains as paintbrushes and “Mommy Mayhem” digital collages and abstract expressionist paintings.

Grad’s artwork has been shown in solo and group shows in Washington, DC, New York City, Venice, Italy, and the Toronto area. She holds degrees from Brandeis University, Duke University School of Law, and Sciences Po in Paris, France. She earned a BFA with Distinction in Painting and Drawing from OCAD University in May 2022 as the Governor General Academic Medal and Mrs. W.O. Forsyth winner. This fall Grad will start a Master’s in Fine Arts program at York University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Mayhem Bunny
Elephant and Doll

Artist Statement

Motherhood is mayhem. When I became a parent, carving out time and space to create (not just people but artwork) became essential.

My current art practice is driven by an obsessive-compulsive need to document my three kids and their perpetually changing debris (meaning their messes of toys, books, clothing, and crafts). Daily household and art routines, rituals, and schedules reflect my attempt to reign in the chaos of parenting. Numbers, habits, and repetition are crucial to my sanity and survival.

There are 52 weekends in each year when my children’s school, daycare, or summer camp are closed for 65 agonizing hours in a row. To symbolize the slow passing of parenting time, I created 52 digital collages each containing 65 artworks layered together in photoshop. The artwork layers include my postcard drawings, abstract colour paintings, and paint mark experiments with toys.

Recent Mommy Mayhem series paintings are loosely based on these collages and blur the distinction between representation and abstraction. Gestural paint marks use the bright colours found in toys and messes.

In my Motherhood Hit Me Like a Train series, rolling a toy train across my artwork as a not-so subtle metaphor for being a mother artist. Toys have overtaken my home and my artwork, and they are always in mind and in my way. For my abstract watercolour on paper artworks, I reverse the ubiquitous toy train and turn it into a paintbrush.

Repetitive marks starting from observation are a way of building up unclear layers to form abstraction. Loosely based on the digital collages, I paint colourful abstract portraits of stuffed animals and toys that serve as transitional comfort objects for children as they grow and learn independence from parents.

My painting subjects reflect moments of motherhood, and my painting technique is a reference to, and mocking of, art history movements such as the machismo of the Abstract Expressionist painters. I am conceiving a visual language informed by abstract expressionism, playful mark making, and the contradiction between my dream of control and order versus my reality of constant pandemonium and mess at home. Routines, patterns, and symbolic numbers are expression in my art.

I research contemporary parent artists and their artwork including Mary Kelly (Post-Partum Document. 1973-79), Monica Bock (Maternal Exposure (or, don’t forget the lunches), 1999-2000), and Paul Campbell (Koosh Series and Remote Control Series). When painting, I think of Denyse Thomasos’ powerful gestural marks, Susanna Heller’s experimental studio practice, and Amy Silliman’s abstraction.

Museum of Motherhood Artist Residency Project

During her MOM Residency, Rachael will curate an online art exhibition of artwork made by artist mothers who manage to create artwork and keep up their studio practice while parenting. The show will include weekly blog posts interviewing participating artists to explore their work and parent experiences. During the period of her artist residency at MOM, Rachael will attempt to create a drawing or painting each day related to her “Mommy Mayhem” or “Motherhood Hit Me Like a Train” series.

You can view more of Rachael’s artwork at RachaelGradArt.com

If you are interested in connecting with Rachael, you can find her on social media @RachaelGradArt

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MoM Welcomes Guest Artist Tara Blackwell

We are excited to announce our newest Guest Artist, Tara Blackwell. Tara is a mixed media pop artist leveraging the tension between fun and social commentary in her artwork.

Continue reading to find out more about Tara and her journey.

I am a mixed media pop artist living and working in Connecticut. In my work, I play with bold colors, layers, and texture, often incorporating nostalgic pop culture to explore contemporary social issues. At a glance, my paintings depict a childlike innocence, but there is usually underlying social commentary. While I have fun exploring imagery from my childhood, at the same time, I am delving into insecurities that go way back to being an awkward girl in middle school – that “picked last in gym class” feeling. My “Saturday Morning” series is all about resiliency and perseverance. Remember digging in the cereal box as a kid to find that prize? These little characters are symbolically shown in positions of independence, strength, and success. The process of creating this work has personally helped me to conjure up my own inner strength and to envision my “prize” within my reach.

In the Summer of 2020, like many of us, my daughter (Lila) and I spent a lot of time together indoors due to the pandemic. Lila was 12 and in her first year of middle school at a new school and navigating the typical challenges that I remember all too well from that age. But the isolation and fear of getting sick was an unexpected turn. Then—we saw the horrific murder of George Floyd; Another brutal killing (at the hands of the police) of a human being who looks like us. Black Lives Matter protests erupted stronger and louder than ever and living downtown in a major city, we could just step outside and be part of the movement. Together, Lila and I began to pour our feelings into our art.

I was still working on my Saturday Morning series when Lila suggested the use of Powerpuff Girls, a cartoon linked to her generation, not mine. I had been focusing on my own childhood memories in this work, but when I started exploring Lila’s suggested reference, my focus shifted to her experience at that moment. As a mother, I not only thought about how I could protect her but how could I help her to discover her own voice and inner strength. My Saturday Morning series shifted direction and I tapped into my fierceness as a mother– as a Black mother of a Black girl. The Powerpuff Girl painting became the piece titled “Justice Now.” I consider that piece to be the beginning of a powerful collaboration between me and Lila.

If you are interested in applying for a guest residency here at MoM, please go to our website HERE: https://bit.ly/3uRgugm  to find out more. BE SURE TO HURRY! Spots have been filling FAST! We hope that future tours of the space will be available soon, but they are by appointment only in Artist Enclave Historic Kenwood: “where art lives.”

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Art Featured Featured Artists health MOM Art Annex

MOM Welcomes Guest Artist Jessica Caldas

We are excited to announce our newest Guest Artist, Jessica Caldas. During her guest artist residency, Jessica will expand on her research and writing dedicated to exploring her matriarchal line.

Continue reading to find out more about Jessica and their journey.

What do you hope to accomplish during your residency?
Much of my time right now is devoted to others and work outside of my studio: I have a small child and family, a part-time telecommuting day job (although a very flexible and supportive one), and run a volunteer nonprofit arts organization in my community with robust programming. I love these things, and they are all important to my happiness and, ultimately, my practice as an artist, but so is my studio, and I am not always able to dedicate the time I would like to my studio. At my MoM residency, more than anything, I look forward to returning to a rhythm that is me and making centered because even a brief two weeks of this kind of time is invaluable to me (and I think most artists).
As far as the work goes, I have been slowly, very slowly, building up a body of research and work about Puerto Rico and American social and political history and how my family’s story fits into that history. In the past year, I have finally begun multidisciplinary experiments in tangent with this writing and research. I will continue those experiments and hope to create a few more formal works within the overall body. I am especially interested in visually exploring my family’s matriarchal line, as there is an abundance of incredible women characters in my family’s story.

How would you describe the connection or relevance of motherhood to your art or approach to creating?

In the context of this work specifically: I am myself a mother figuring out the best way to pass down my Puerto Rican heritage to my daughter. For me, it is a source of anxiety, pride, and complicated feelings that are not easy to describe. It’s also a joke. How can this sorta-Rican (me) teach anything to my quarter-Rican (my daughter). The matriarchal line of history that I have access to is more limited as the writings and research I am conducting are predicated on my Grandfather’s memoirs, so the work here is more abstract, more imagined. I think, like motherhood and child-rearing, this feels appropriate because nothing can prepare you for the reality of children – it is an act of faith, creativity, imagination, and world-building, no matter how well or poorly you do it.

What message would you send to other artists in this field?

When I first became a mother, I resisted the identity in a huge way. I was in graduate school, and I was convinced I could carry on in my life as I always had, with no differences, just with a child in tow. This is untrue, and it’s not that you can’t do this, and I watch with interest other artist mothers I know keep their art and family lives so separate and so distinct. But it’s not for me, and I don’t think it is for everyone, even if everyone is capable of it. For me, becoming a mother meant learning that I had to care for myself. This was a thing I had never done particularly well, but you quickly (hopefully) learn that there is very little you can do for your child if you are not well fed and slept, if your heart or soul is broken or hurting. That being said, I also learned that for me personally, I had to maintain my own identity as an individual as well as grow and develop my identity as a mother and how these two people were the same and different, how they could work together, and how that could create space for new things, new work, now joy, and new care. I’m not always good at it, and like any mother, I am often at war with myself over the ways I choose to balance my time. But I have learned slowness, care, and comfort in all the ways that I am as an artist and in my studio, things I did not necessarily allow myself before motherhood.

About Jessica Caldas

Jessica Caldas is a Puerto Rican American, Florida, and Georgia-based artist, advocate, and activist. Her work connects personal and community narratives to larger themes and social issues. Caldas has participated in numerous emerging artist residencies, including the Atlanta Printmakers Studio in 2011, MINT Gallery’s Leap Year Program from 2012-2013, The Creatives Project from 2018 to 2019, Vermont Studio Center in 2020, and was the Art on the Atlanta Beltline AIR in 2020-2021. Caldas was awarded The Center for Civic Innovations 2016 Creative Impact award, named Creative Loafing’s Best of ATL Artist for 2016 and 2015, received the City of Atlanta Office of Cultural Affairs Emerging Artist Award in Visual Arts for 2014, and was a finalist for the Forward Arts Foundation’s Emerging Artist Award in 2014. Her work has been featured at Burnaway, ArtsAtl, Creative Loafing Atlanta, Atlanta Magazine, Simply Buckhead, and more. Her work has been shown at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, GA, and is included in the collections of Kilpatrick Townsend, The City of Atlanta Office of Cultural Affairs, and the Kyoto International Community House. Her work is currently on view at the Art & History Museum of Maitland in her first museum solo exhibition, CORPUS DELICTI.

In her advocacy work, Caldas has spent time lobbying for policy at the local level in Georgia and spent time with the YWCA Georgia Women’s Policy Institute at the 2016 general assembly to assure the passage of the Rape Kit Bill and in 2016 to stop HB 51 in 2017, a bill that would have harmed the safety of sexual assault survivors on college campuses.

Caldas received her Master of Fine Arts degree at Georgia State University in 2019 and received her BFA in printmaking from the University of Georgia in 2012. She currently runs Good News Arts, a small community arts space and gallery in rural North Central Florida.

If you are interested in applying for a guest residency here at MOM, please go to our website HERE: https://bit.ly/3uRgugm  to find out more. BE SURE TO HURRY! Spots have been filling FAST! We hope that future tours of the space will be available soon, but they are by appointment only in Artist Enclave Historic Kenwood: “where art lives.”

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Art Blog Education Featured Featured Artists Internships JourMS Living Board Announcements motherhood Opportunities Queering Parenting st petersburg USF

Letter From the Founder: Joy Report & Welcome Emma

I could begin this report so many ways, but let me start by sharing a recent full-circle experience.

Last month, I received an internship application through our online portal. The inquiry came from the daughter of the woman who used to manage the MOM website as well as the MaMaPalOOza website in early 2000. So, this intern applicant turned out to be Emma Andrews, and her mother, Amy Andrews, brought her daughter to our New York location when she was only about ten years old.

This totally rocked my world. So, let me please share Emma’s bio with you now and welcome her to her summer internship with MOM. Full circle:

Emma Andrews (they/she) is entering their junior year at Binghamton University. She is a history major and mathematical sciences minor. She is pursuing a career as a public programmer in museums, but wouldn’t be unhappy teaching calculus either! They prefer to focus on all areas of history, rather than hone in on one speciality. In her free time, Emma loves to read in their hammock and is a bit of a movie buff (although with admittedly terrible taste in films). They are particularly passionate about queer studies and are looking forward to integrating that passion into their culminating project during her internship at the Museum of Motherhood.

Emma will be working this summer creating a series of resources regarding queerness in families. There will be resources created for both parents and children, in hopes of promoting and fostering more productive and respectful conversations about the queer community. The children’s presentation will feature child friendly language and concepts to help educate children on different family types and identities. Her internship portion aimed at parents will feature many of the same definitions as the children’s presentation but expanded, as well as “how to’s” regarding having respectful conversations with their own children about queer topics, such as identity, pronouns, and the potential for their own future families. Additionally, they will be putting together a short research project for those interested in the history of queer studies. Their research will be a guide through the evolution of the queer identity, with an emphasis on modern changes within these ideas, particularly through a legislative lens.

During their time at MOM, Emma hopes their project will provide help to those in need of queer resources and education, especially in states affected by anti-gay legislation. She wants these resources to be available for anyone of any age or role, and available in any location at all times. If the government or schools cannot provide the education necessary to reflect a diverse community, they want their resources to do that job.

Emma Andrews

Now for Extensive Updates! Read on:

There’s been a lot of activity at MOM over the last several months. I thought it might be good to connect everyone and keep you all updated.

Please join me in welcoming several new team members.

Deborah Gelch, a senior executive with a wealth of experience in non-profits, administration, and fundraising has joined us as our new “Strategic Advisor”. She brings with her knowledge of Salesforce, specific technological advances in CRM management, and a windfall of support including fundraising initiatives. We have been meeting weekly over the last several months and she has already imported a host of information into our database. Together, we are aiming for an October 1 fun-raiser in St. Petersburg.

Welcome too, our new website developer, Elena Rodz, who will be working on WordPress updates, our online store, and memberships moving forward. She is currently updating the MOM Team page. Please, do look for updates soon.

Kasia Nowacki joined MOM this year in the capacity of ‘Educational Liaison and Development’. To that end, she has been strategically working on multiple avenues of MOM growth internally and in collaboration with other institutions. She also facilitates tech at our monthly online events, happening the 22nd of each month.

Donna Lewis, architect, artist, and native New Yorker has joined our Executive Fundraising Board. This is hugely exciting as our goals for this active committee are top of mind and imperative for new growth. We hope to have others join Donna on this important new endeavor.

Since fall 2021, we have welcomed three onsite Residencies in October, December, and April. The summer will welcome two additional Artist Residents, and two more in the fall of 2022, plus the three last summer for a total of ten, even in the midst of COVID!

We also welcome four new interns, and another USF graduate student starting in the fall. Our summer interns are: Emma Andrews, Sarah Akomoh, Teddy Friedline, and Mary Noah. A hearty welcome to each! They will all be working on a variety of initiatives including grant writing, teaching tools, journal publication, and social media.

MOM participated in the AEHK Studio Tour in St. Pete featuring a newly built vestibule for seeing exhibits from the front entrance. As an artist, I was able to enjoy two artist-grants (one for public art in Seminole Park and one for editorial help with some of my current writing).

I filed for ‘fictitious name‘ status for MOM (DBA Museum of Motherhood) under our IRS registered 501c3 non-profit MOM Art Annex in Florida. I am also segwaying out of the Motherhood Foundation in NY, as it is redundant to maintain both. 

For the purposes of clarity: the MOM Art Annex is currently serving as our incubator of the realization of our own fully functioning, free standing museum structure. Renderings for this vision are online.

Our new ‘Educational Development” Coordinator, Kasia Nowacki and I worked for several months updating the language on the MOM website as well as our internal documents to reflect changing attitudes along with more inclusive language. Our newest intern, Teddy Friedline continues this enterprise at the JourMS website. We are grateful for these efforts.

Kasia and I also made repeated attempts to pioneer projects with Eckerd College. We also reached out to the Museum Studies Department at UF, and began research on USF degrees locally in St. Pete that might coordinate well with MOM’s ongoing activities. I attended the Eckerd College Job Fair for summer internships and we have a few ideas for bringing collaborations to the fore in the fall.

Our annual MOM Conference was a beautiful and smart gathering over Zoom this year. The theme was Creativity for a Cause and the inspiration flowed from a work-in-progress-film on miscarriage to several thematic works on home-site productions during COVID from artists and academics. Thanks to the entire Academic Board for their involvement in this!

We started a *NEW ONLINE COMMUNITY – This is a place to connect and interact. This is where we will host our annual conferences for those who want to attend remotely. This is also where we host ongoing monthly events the 22nd of each month 7-8:30PM EST (Roksana Badruddoja will be with us in June conducting an intergenerational healing workshop), and this is also where we will be building out some of our coursework.

During the month of May, Mary Noah, who is with us for the summer, and comes with some non-profit experience, worked on a rebranding kit for MOM along with a Social Media Calendar. She will pivot to new activities in the coming months.

Our new Living Board 2022 is active too, as we wave Lexy Valdes (who began her journey with us as an intern and stayed for THREE years), on her way and wish her the best with her medical school studies. Our newest Living Board members are: Zabrina Shkurti– President, Nicole Musselman– Editor JourMS, and Tracy Sidesinger who returns as our Residency Director.

Finally, I just received word about leading a workshop on New Technologies at the annual FAM (Florida Association of Museums) Conference in September. I think this will spur me on to do more research on tools available to us for online reach. I’m excited to bring updates regarding MOM to this event. The conference takes place in Miami this year and includes hundreds of museum professionals from the state of Florida.

So, what’s the action item here? Big goals here are keeping you updated, letting you witness the progress for yourselves, and bringing team members together in the spirit of MOM. 

*IF YOU KNOW SOMEONE WHO YOU THINK MIGHT LIKE TO JOIN US: one of our boards, our new MEMBERSHIP community, pt staff, or MOM development, PLEASE DO SEND THEM OUR WAY: INFO@MOMmuseum.org

With Huge Warmth,

JOY!

Categories
Birth Blog breastfeeding Caregiving Education Featured Featured Artists Feminism health JourMS MOM Art Annex motherhood

Food Fights, Life, Death, and M/otherhood

Letter from the Founder: Martha Joy Rose

I’ll admit, I am mostly an observer on social media. Hanging back, commenting occasionally, and mostly tuning in when it seems interesting friend-wise, geographically or plant/food-wise. My kids send me weird stuff all the time from here and occasionally I get lost in the weirdness.

Recently, there has been an outcry in the broader social media community and in the news regarding a plethora of topics having to do with mothers. 

I’ve been immersed in the world of M/otherhood for a very long time as a scholar, a family person, and a museum curator. I think a lot more could be done, with our group here at the museum, and in our new Membership Community to collectively empower us.

For today I would just like to put it out there, that the formula crisis- or I should say the ‘lack’ of infant formula crisis is a reflection on how we treat those to procreate in general in America.

I want to avoid any hot responses or trolling type of things and just generally assert that for the population that makes humankind viable (mothers), for better or worse, who live in a country with no Social Security benefits for their time at home, an ongoing non-equitable pay situation, and a lack of federally mandated parental leave, the formula crisis is just another tip of the iceberg (among many other things). For many this is a life and death situation that begins with birth and ends, in the case of many, with death. I am specifically noting the fact that the US has the highest maternal mortality rate of any developed nation.

Now I recognize that social media is often a place to vent and occasionally to also problem solve with positive suggestions. Advocating that women should simply breast-feed is not really in tune with everybody’s reality. There are a myriad of reasons for this, so I would be in favor of those with experience, sharing their strength and hope. 

For example, the New York Milk Bank has been working for years to distribute donated breast milk. Another recent news story I stumbled on suggested that mother’s milk may soon be able to be grown in a lab (?), and when my kids were infants I sometimes supplemented with a homegrown mixture of powdered goats milk, carrot juice and molasses (the recipe can still be found online), though I am not advocating with for a specific solution as the founder of MOM, but rather raising the bar on visibility of those with experience in this area.

MOM’s own Journal of Mother Studies, too has been a really interesting source of shared scholarship on the subject. Catherine Ma wrote a piece on breastfeeding exposure and results for JourMS in 2016 and in 2017, Shannon K. Carter and Beatriz Reyes-Foster wrote the piece Peer Breast Milk Sharing as Resistance to Patriarchal Control about the informal network of mothers who do share milk between cohorts.

Tonight, May 22nd from 7-8:30PM, MOM shares 90 minutes with filmmaker and scholar Bonnie Silvestri online on Zoom: her film addresses American family policy among other things. The screening and talk back are free. The best way to participate is to sign up at our Community and then RSVP to join us for the 34 minute film, followed by open discussion.

Before, I sign off today, I also want to share the work of one fierce, feminist advocate Jul who created the banner for this blog and also creates awesome items which we’ve added to our store onsite at the MOM Art Annex, because, well, because every little bit helps. We need the next generation of women artists, leaders, moms, and advocates to rise. Here is Jul, in her own words:

My name is Jul and I am the artist and owner of Jul Uncensored—a Shop and Podcast centered around body positivity, sex education and social issues! I sell art, pussy pillows, badass t-shirts, funny feminist finds, and so much more in order to create awareness, spread positivity, and maybe even make people smile and laugh! The majority of the goods sold are made with up/cycled, reused, repurposed materials in order to cut down on environmental waste. You can follow me on my journey on my socials @jul_uncensored or on my website: http://www.juluncensored.com

For me personally, and for the Museum and our members collectively, whatever we can do to spread the good word, create collaborations and to encourage community, is a win-win. At least we’re not suffering alone, and who knows – we just might find solutions if we work together?!

What are your thoughts and how might we collaboratively move ahead to support each other and to solve these kinds of problems? Hope you can join us for the film tonight. Here’s the link again. Once you join the FREE community, you will have access to the event ‘Funnel of Dreams’. It would be awesome to see you there. Because, really – Motherhood IS one fuck of a journey!