Category: MOM Art Annex

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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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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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Grow Mama Grow

There is always plenty to do around this house! At MoM, we continue to be actively reviewing multiple infrastructure definitions, fundraising initiatives, and plans for growth. In the meantime, creating compelling content and opportunities to connect virtually and in-person are essential.

JOIN US (Wed) JUNE 22 6:30-8PM EST for a community talk and discussion on Zoom at our *NEW COMMUNITY. We invite you to pre-register for this FREE workshop. RSVP on the community site with Dr. Roksana Badruddoja.

DR. ROKSANA BADRUDDOJA WORKSHOP EVENT ON OUR COMMUNITY NETWORK: Reproductive trauma-from loss of children to obstetric violence-has an epigenetic impact. In her upcoming MOM Community talk on June 22, 2022, at 7 p.m. EST, Roksana Badruddoja will discuss how trauma changes our gene 🧬 expression/informs how we show up in the world and how we can recover ourselves. Available on our *NEW COMMUNITY SITE. Register now for FREE opportunities to collaborate, communicate, and present. We look forward to connecting over the miles. RSVP.

OUR MULTIPLE INITIATIVES AND WORKS IN PROGRESS:

MEMBERSHIPS: Finally! Memberships have arrived (although they have not launched yet, we should have this functional opportunity ready to launch within the next few days). We are so pleased to announce this new addition to our museum initiative. Now we can better build together. Whether it’s a private tour you’re looking for, access to our conference, newsletter, community or legacy membership – you asked – we’ve got it covered. Please prepare yourselves to sign up for a membership and help us grow, grow, grow. Pick the annual membership that’s right for you by clicking here.

DEFINITIONS: Womyn, m/others, reproductive identities, the Journal of Mother Studies and more. How do we create conversation on these ideas and identities? First, let us begin by understanding from a broad perspective what we are attempting to dialogue about. We will continue examining these topics throughout the 2022-23 year. Read more here.

BECOME AN ALLY: Sign our new ally letter as we build MOMentum in St. Petersburg for the Museum and Motherhood. After meetings with our local council-persons we have learned that on the ground advocacy can result in impact. Our goal is to share your support with our local officials for increased funding. Thank YOU! Sign our petition here.

GUIDESTAR: Our non-profit profile is up at one of the premium portals for fundraising initiatives. While we still gotta get some numbers posted, we aim to do that over the next few months. The more we raise, the more we can brag! Read more here.

Lastly, shout out to a friend: MAKE ART/ NOT SAD panel discussion that is taking place this Sunday 19th June in England. Register for free at following the eventbrite link and find out more.

Yours in Peace, Love, and M/otherhood –

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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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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!

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Funnel of Dreams Film Screening Online May 22

With the goal of sparking conversations around the topic of caregivers, breadwinners, and family policy, film director Bonnie Silvestri hosts an online film screening and post-film talkback.

The film Funnel of Dreams follows Silvestri, her husband, and their child on a quest to understand the United Kingdom’s policies for families. These policies include paid parental leave, childcare services, and the children’s right to play. 

This way of life is often featured in academic presentations about Scandinavian countries, but in this film the Silvestris investigate how paid family leave affects families in the United Kingdom while they spend time together.

“In the midst of a global pandemic, we wanted to think about our work/home life paradigm and how we might improve things for a better future,” says Bonnie. “In our film, we dive into the history of motherhood, the struggle for women’s rights, and the issues related to family leave in the lives of working parents.”

Bonnie continues “When we became parents, we were surprised to learn that the United States is the only industrialized nation not providing paid family leave.” 

She explains, “We wanted to learn more about a country with a robust framework for new parents. Our short documentary film explores our personal experience with our young daughter living overseas along with interviews with parents, policymakers, and other experts.” 

The film was an official selection of the Through Women’s Eyes International Film Festival, Social and Economic Justice Festival, and the International Social Change Film Festival among others.

For over a decade Bonnie has taught courses including Women and the Law at the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee and won the 2015 Graham-Frey Civic Award from the Florida Campus Compact for outstanding contributions to the development of civic learning and engagement in sustaining participatory democracy.

Funnel of Dreams is 34 minutes in length and will be screened in our Zoom room (LINK IS HERE/ JOIN AND RSVP) at the MOM Community site on Sunday May 22. The film will be screened first with a discussion to follow for a total of 90 minutes beginning at 7PM and ending at 8:30PM EST. Hope you can join us!

#MOMmuseum #WomenMadeFilms #Families #Motherhood #MomsRising #MuseumofMotherhood #FunnelOfDreams #BonnieSilvestri #Motherhood #PaidLeave #AmericanValues #FamilyLeave #MOM #JoinMama #Civics #WomenAndLaw #Women

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Why MOM, Why Now, Why You?

As April comes to a close and May begins in earnest, many of us are wondering what’s next? What’s next in our world, our lives, our finances, and our families. Spring has sprung but so have droughts, war, recession worries, and post-pandemic (or mid-pandemic) realities. One thing is for sure, we can only focus on the things within our control. That means looking around at your family, your friends, and your neighborhood and leading the way, the best way you can.

For teachers, this may mean balancing changing protocols in classrooms. For some mothers, this has meant spending time with strangers screaming in parking lots. For many, survival is just a day away.

In my experience, lurching forward with faltering footwork, leaves me staggering towards an unknown destination. When I feel like quitting, that often means some kind of relief is in sight. After months of lockdown, the personal management of grief, frustration, and fear, this new turn of the season brings hopeful possibilities.

The MOM Art Annex in Florida has seen signs of unprecedented growth. Perhaps this is because of a growing collective concern by some that basic liberties are under siege: book banning, women’s reproductive health access, and the rights of LGBTQ+, have sent some spinning in the direction of social changes spaces like ours. Or, perhaps it’s the years of hard work by so many that are finally coalescing in real MOMentum?

We presented our proposal to the local Historic Kenwood Association a few weeks ago and followed up with meetings with our councilman Richie Floyd. To that end, his solid advice was “advocacy” is all. So we created an ally document for interested friends to sign. Then, we created a petition [Link] that states MOM deserves her own space in the sun. We have spent months reworking some of our original internal document language to make sure inclusivity is front and center. Several new volunteers have joined us as well as a few part time staff persons. The Journal of Mother Studies will accept submissions through May 2022 and then go into the editorial process. We gratefully welcome Nicole Musselman (USF) as lead editor and are excited to welcome a new intern as an editorial assistant beginning June. This is all awesome stuff.

So, won’t you consider growing with us? Mother’s Day is next week. CLICK ON ANY OF THE FOLLOWING LINKS TO Celebrate a M/other you love by making a donation and putting her name on our Tribute Wall online. Support our fundraiser for the Mother Tree acquisition. Read our letter and sign our Ally form. Consider joining our team. Our Executive Fundraising Board is still seeking new members and we welcome those from all backgrounds and skillsets.

Oh, and yeah – HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY ! (Everyday is M/other’s Day). We L<3VE YOU, we love peace, we love our planet, and we’d like to see every human being valued in an equitable and sustainable world. Hang in there. Because we are all connected, because m/otherhood is otherhood, and because if there are more of us spreading light, rather than hate, more of us creating access than obstacles, and more people acting out of respect than entitled aggression – towards each other and our planet- then we just might make it! Let kindness be the currency of our lives.

Martha Joy Rose

Museum Director Martha Joy Rose presenting to the Historic Kenwood Association March 2022

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MOM Welcomes Guest Artist Andrea M. Williams

Artist Andrea M. Williams

We are excited to announce our newest Guest Artist, Andrea M. Williams. A visual artist and mother of two, Andrea knows all too well the toll that motherhood can take on one’s own body, mind, and spirit and she has turned to her art as a way to heal and find peace. Andrea’s fascination with the body has led her down innovative pathways considering new ways to represent the body and its various functions.

During her guest artist residency, Andrea will continue to develop her artwork focusing on her explorations of motherhood. Continue reading to learn more about Andrea’s life and her artistic journey and about our interview with her:

Parenting is hard work. 

Becoming a parent is a profound physical, mental and emotional experience. Before I became a mom, I studied figurative art at academies in Chicago, Florence, and New York. I love the figure but more than that, I am interested in depicting the human body itself. In graduate school I discovered printmaking, which quickly became my passion. 

After graduate school, I underwent treatment for some stress-induced medical issues. I began considering the organs and systems underneath the body’s exterior. I had lost regular access to a printmaking workshop, and began carving and hand-printing relief prints at home using linoleum blocks. My work became smaller in scale. I started experimenting with chromatic inks. I drew images of organs layered with abstract linear elements. I left behind the fussiness of registering plates and printed several linoleum blocks together. I cut up prints and glued them back together in layers, adding graphite and watercolor. 

This process of assemblage has become a kind of meditation. Instead of starting with a carefully prepared drawing, I head in a direction, unsure of where I will end up. For my guideposts, I use photos of forests taken in upstate New York. Frozen cattails clustered overgrown next to a bank parking lot. Gnarled tree bark. Videos of new spring leaves softly shifting in the breeze. I think about living plants and living bodies and the connection between them. I consider what a body can do, how a body can give life, how a body can deteriorate. 

Each of my daughters was born in traumatic circumstances. My first was born 6 weeks premature and my second was born in mid-2020 during the height of the first Covid wave. Each time after giving birth, I experienced postpartum depression. My body had done incredible feats, but it now felt foreign. Over time I realized I needed to regain a balance between caring for my daughters and caring for my mental health. My art practice has become an outlet to cope with, at times, crippling anxiety. It is a meditation on what it means to be an artist, a parent, a woman.

-Andrea M. Williams 

About Andrea M. Williams

Andrea Williams is a visual artist whose mixed media works explore motherhood, birth, and the female body. During her time at the M.O.M. residency, she plans to create a suite of works on paper that join elements of relief printmaking, collage, drawing, and painting. 

Andrea received her MFA in Painting with a Printmaking concentration from the New York Academy of Art and her BFA from the American Academy of Art in Chicago. Her work has been shown in New York and Chicago. She lives and works in northwest Indiana with her patient husband and two rambunctious young daughters.

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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What Makes Us Stronger

Hello World. Read here: New podcast, MOM Conference, Acquisitions, and the Feminist Playhouse!

We continue to keep our focus high and our voices strong here at MOM. To that end, we had a beautiful weekend in St Petersburg filled with art and celebration as people from all walks of life and far-ranging geographies came to enjoy the MOM Art Annex gardens (featuring art by Luci Westphal from the AEHK neighborhood and in our online store), exhibits, as well as the Feminist Playhouse, where Martha Joy Rose lectured widely on womyn, equality, and mother Studies, while making lemon art.

Special shout out to our Remote Residency Participant Rebecca Louise Clarke (Monash University, Australia), who is completing her PhD as well as a book on maternal objects and museums for Routledge Press. Her recent feature on cardiCast episode 84 podcast was a marvelous and generous sharing of our work here at the Museum of Motherhood and her time studying with Martha Joy Rose. It is a marvelous listen and well worth tuning in (link is above and here).

This weekend, MOM hosts its Annual Art and Academic MOM Conference in person and on Zoom. Only registered participants may attend this two-day activity. Our topic this year features Creativity for a Cause with luminaries, activists, and professionals from around the world. You must be a member of our new Community Page to attend and be pre-approved due to Zoom limitations.

Finally, we have been slowly building our collections here at MOM. Our newest additions to the collection are Jo Spence, Remodeling Photo History: Revisualization 1981-82, black and white print (England). This photo serves as a study in deconstructing breastfeeding, asking us to interrogate deeply held assumptions (with a totally punk rock spin).

Also new to the collection is Sallie Hackett Brown’s sculpture Tender or Threat. Sally is an AEHK icon. The sculpture’s movement of the wood and metal is evocative of a figurative male/female dance, with all its complexities, though the sculpture itself is quite simple.

The Mother Tree is on loan from artist Helen Hiebert. Helen is a nationally recognized paper artist and a friend of MOM since the museum days in New York City. This seven- foot-high sculpture is intended to invoke the way in which nursing mothers nourish the world. The long silken tendrils cascading from her chest lead towards a collection of hand crocheted yarn collected around her feet which reach into the community connecting all our best intentions. (Also pictured in the background, ‘In Black and White’, photographs by Alexia Nye Jackson for Mother the Job).

Our online fundraiser is ongoing. Please consider joining us by adding your name to our Mother Tree Fundraiser. The link to our GO FUND ME is here!

GO FUND ME / MOTHER TREE FUNDRAISER

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