Thank you for your patience & support as we go through one of the most challenging times we have faced as a team – and as the Museum of Motherhood organization.
We made it out of the hurricane but exist in a community full of obstacles.
Many of our board members, family members, and community members have extensive damage to their homes & jobs. Some homes & lives are lost forever.
While Tampa Bay limps back to basic necessities like water, electricity, and debris removal, our non-profit’s programming & access have been impacted.
Our Report
The MoM Art Auction in collaboration with OXH Gallery has been postponed until the spring with a new date TBD. We will update information here as we have it.
Art Auction Postponed
Its not just us – our sponsors are struggling with their own infrastructure while MoM’s promotions and organization of the 25th Annual Academic Conference announcements have been delayed.
We are still setting up our new space in the face of extreme weather.
When Will We Focus On The Ethics of Well-Bring ?
WHAT CAN WE DO?
World focus needs to shift towards sustainability & longer term solutions.
Access, support, and fiscal stability for mothers, families & caregivers in the U.S. is an ongoing social epidemic which must be confronted.
Locally, ‘Give or Get’ is open for donations during MoM’s regular hours:
-Thursday-Sat 12-6PM
-Sunday 12-3PM
Visit our new location: 2606 Fairfield Ave. S Gallery Row: Building 7 Door B
Donation box inside. Child-friendly. Free play.
At MoM We Persist.
We continue because our mission is bigger than the moment.
The Museum of Motherhood team has come together in unprecedented ways. Even as this message reaches you, we are busy building back better ways to reach those in need, those who aspire, and those who are devoted to making the world a brighter, smarter, and more generous place.
BE THE LIGHT (WHEN YOU CAN):
May the peace that surpasses all understanding find you wherever you are.
The Museum of Motherhood is the first and only exhibition & education center devoted to the art, science, and herstory of women, m/others, and families. We are invested in countering narratives that have kept women less visible. We keep abreast of changing birth technologies and give voice to a mom-made art movement through our actions.
We have been working over the past few weeks to make the transition from our offices- where our permanent collection has lived for the last seven years at the MOM Art Annex to our new location at The Factory in the Warehouse District in St. Pete.
Only a mile from our current spot, heading south on 28th St., take a left at the decorative art pole on Fairfield Ave, and go a few hundred yards to a small parking area where a rainbow sidewalk appears. Walking through the double doors at 2622 Fairfield Ave., the Fairgrounds and Daddy Cool Records are on your left – then, to the right and up the ramp is the new Museum of Motherhood location! Whoo hoo.
This move signifies a huge leap for MoM in the state of Florida. As a woman-owned organization focused on art, community, culture, and education in a climate that holds so much potential, we aim to cultivate relationships based on inclusion, love, and empowerment. This means holding space that is both safe and welcoming.
We do our best, all the time.
We invite you to participate in this new grand experiment in St. Petersburg, Florida (and online), as the Museum of Motherhood explores women’s place and progress in Western society. Together, we will collectively develop new notions of what it means to grow and collaborate together while celebrating our shared legacy of birth, life, and death on this planet.
Join us in our unwavering journey to inform and inspire!
Welcome Please Our Newest Intern
Graziella Pierangeli s a senior English/Museum studies major at Bryn Mawr College. She is passionate about recognizing the academic and personal achievements of women throughout history. She has worked on projects highlighting the important work done by women scientists, on the role of motherhood in ancient Greek tragedies, and the unique perspective of lesbian authors. When she isn’t working at MoM, she can be found tutoring at the Bryn Mawr Writing Center, taking long walks around campus, or reading a science fiction novel. She is so excited to be included in the founding mothers project!
LONDON ENGLAND – I attended the Procreate Project’s Oxytocin Conference, organized by Dyana Gravina, and team, mid-May for two days of intensely powerful commissioned art, scholarship, and workshop work at Kings College. Scholar, poet, and accelerator Hannah Brockbank and I were scheduled to lead a workshop together.
Inspired by the work of Sierra Clark, the workshop was titled “Repair Work, from Sweet Nothings to Sweet Everything,” the title of her chapter in Repairing the Black FamilyAnthology, edited by Sister Nayyirah Muhammad. The aim of the workshop was to disrupt narratives in order to facilitate healing, which was indeed the goal of the entire conference.
The power of stories shared and the work we did together to dialogue about contemporary issues facing mothers and the women who labor through this important work could not be denied. Laura Godfrey Issacs shared information about the Birth Cafe (see more at http://www.birth are.org), PhD candidate Anna Horn’s interactive workshop on ‘Inclusive Infant Feeding’ compelled.
The conference itself was funded by the Public Arts Council of England amount others. The Procreate Project, Museum of Motherhood, and MER: The Mom Egg Review have been working together since 2015 to feature the art and literature of m/others. I am looking forward to bringing new knowledge(s) back to Florida when I return. But first, the second portion of my trip takes me on a three hour flight to the island of Malta in the Mediterranean Sea.
Scenes from Oxytocin, London England
XEMXIJA, MALTA with its windswept bay, Mellieha with views that stretch past the isle of Goza, Mostar, with its magnificent dome, Mdina the silent city, and Rabat. Hot, dusty, and international. Roses, cactus, olive trees and lemons. In Malta, we go to see the Goddess temples Hagar Qim and Mnajdra. These two temples comprise one of the three UNESCO Heritage sites on Malta, but together there are seven megalithic temples. So, of the three sites heritage sites, one represents all of the temples combined, plus the city of Valletta, and the Hypogeum. Additionally, located at the island of Gozo are the temples rumored to built by the giants.
These Megalithic temples comprise some of the oldest free-standing structures on earth. Older than the pyramids, they are thought to be Goddess Temples for both fertility and transformation as part of a prehistoric culture that appears to be centered around women and the three spheres, heaven, earth, and the underworld as embodied through the pot, house, temple and tomb. We catch the bus and hold tight swerving up narrow inclines twisting and turning above the sea.
When we get to the temple, I am quivering with excitement. We buy tickets, walk through the small but impactful museum, and head outdoors along a windswept path towards the structure which overlooks the Mediterranean. The breeze is slight. Hagar Qim is crowned with a giant white canvas to lessen the impact of the elements. As one approaches her entrance, the tent fades away and all focus turns to the massive rocks shaping what appears to be her portal beyond the giant curved walls. According to Cultural Anthropologist Veronica Veen, we enter the Goddess’ body through her vagina (Pg. 8 The Goddess of Malta).
Goddesses of Malta
There is so much to write about here. Both portions of my trip have offered so much in terms of knowledge, blessings, friendship, and collaboration. I’ll bring all this newfound knowledge of Goddesses and the art of many m/others back to the Museum of Motherhood with me. It will certainly inform my work moving forward and I look forward to the future conversations, creativity, and future collaborations this will inspire.
Yours in Love, Light, and M/otherhood. I hope my American friends have a great Memorial Day Weekend – Martha Joy Rose
More about my personal perspectives can be found at my blog: MarthaJoyRose.com
February is the month of Black History, V-Day Love, and Susan B. Anthony Day. How do all these things intersect? Let’s try to connect the dots.
Black History month was codified into law in 1986. Championed by Carter G. Woodson, the ‘father of Black history’ with an agenda to promote Black studies, history, and culture, “Woodson’s goal from the very beginning was to make the celebration of Black history in the field of history a ‘serious area of study.” (Source). He spent his whole life working towards this goal.
As it turns out, the Carter G. Woodson African American Museum is 2.7 miles from the MOM Art Annex in the city of St. Petersburg. This is just one more reason St. Pete is an awesome place to develop our mission here in Pinellas County Florida. We sure do appreciate our neighbors. Next time you stop in to visit us, make sure to schedule a visit at the Woodson Museum too!
And now, with the month of love upon us, let’s give a big shout out for February 14th. Might we propose a renewed focus on brotherly and sisterly love this Valentines Day? Might we push back on violence in this wildly radicalized world. This secular event is celebrated worldwide as a day of affection and romance, yet humans have so much more to improve upon.
Here at MoM: We push back on war. We push back on aggression and lies. We push back on book banning, oppression, and hate speech. We acknowledge the lives lost to violence, the misguided ‘othering’ of individuals, and the patriarchal constructs that continue to dominate our world culture. This year on the 14th, we celebrate the V-Day Movement, One Billion Rising, an activist organization that emerged out of the Vagina Monologues by Even Ensler on Feb. 14, 1998 to stop violence of all kinds around the planet.
Then, rising up on February 15th is Susan B. Anthony‘s birthday. We honor her on this remembrance day for her commitment to suffrage during the first wave feminist movement in the United States. Her work with Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Frederick Douglass and others, as both an abolitionist and then working on behalf of women for the right to vote, are seminal. Though these partnerships were complicated, Anthony a ‘woman’ and Douglas a ‘Black man’ are both significant figures in the early emancipation movements. Remarkably, Anthony’s birthday is a state holiday in Florida. I am proud to say that I still hold the Susan B. Anthony award by NOW-NYC, which proudly hangs in my office at the Annex. See more about the feminist waves below in our Flash Feminism slide show!
Flash Feminism One
Flash Feminism Two
Flash Feminism Three
Flash Feminism Four
Flash Feminism Five
What’s next? A lot, it turns out. This Friday, we will be hosting a dinner with YesChefVillage onsite here at MoM. Sunday, February 5th is a sold-out Feminist Pizza Party in our garden to benefit the public arts initiative in Kenwood. I look forward to continuing my work with the St. Pete High School Feminist Club with several projects including this simple booklet introducing the four waves of feminism to students of all ages (See slide show above). I also have the privilege of overseeing detailed projects with interns conducting advanced scholarship in the area of mother studies from around the world! Finally, MoM will be participating in Localtopia 2023 with our own table and information about launching our capital building campaign, while hopefully finalizing the acquisition of the Mother Tree statue. These are just a few of our offerings this month at MoM. Looking forward to the intersections that connect us. See some of our recent tour participants here 🙂 Please donate to our success if you can!
With Love Always, All the Time; Martha JOY Rose, Founder/Director MoM
We are excited to announce our newest Guest Artist in Residence, Marin Sardy! Marin is a critically acclaimed author who is currently working on her second novel.
Headshot of Marin Sardy
Q: What is your connection to m/otherhood as an artist?
A: I love the way this question is phrased, with the word that highlights both “motherhood” and “other-hood.” I’m a writer of memoir, personal essays, and other forms of creative nonfiction, and my connection to both of the above concepts centers on my explorations of mental health, caregiving, and disability justice. As the daughter and sister of two people who struggled with serious, chronic mental illness, I wrote my first memoir, The Edge of Every Day, to examine the ways that I have strived to understand their experiences, worked to help them, and been shaped by loss. My current work is more focused on dismantling the deeply ingrained cultural attitudes that continue to prevent people from seeking and receiving effective, respectful mental health care. I’d like to add too that, while I haven’t written about it, I am also a stepmother. In both of these roles, I am and have been “mother-adjacent” in ways that I believe ought to be honored and valued in the face of the too-narrow box that motherhood has often been confined to.
Q: What do you hope to accomplish during your residency?
A: I plan to make as much progress as I can on my second book, which folds together stories from the lives of two very different women who lived with long-term psychosis: an art photographer whose work I admire, and my mother. I am currently focused on completing a full draft of the portions that relate to my mother, and my role as a daughter who was pushed into, and later embraced, acting as a caregiver for her. I’m interested in questions such as: What does it mean to be a caregiver in a mental health context, when the work involved is so often intangible? What kind of support might have helped both of us to live our lives more fully and safely? And what does this mean for me, as a daughter who spent so much time mothering a mother who had, in my youth, so dramatically failed to mother me? What (if anything) did my mother owe me, and what was it fair or unfair to ask of her?
Q: What led you to MoM and the residency program here?
A: I discovered Mom when I saw former MoM resident Tracy Sidesinger’s post on Instagram announcing that she had been accepted for the residency! Having never heard of the organization, I did a bit of research and quickly decided to apply myself. I was inspired by the museum’s desire to promote community and to both explore and support motherhood in all its facets. It just felt like it made sense for me to try to connect with the organization. Tracy in fact had been a student in an online nonfiction writing course I taught through Catapult a few years ago, and I’m grateful that I stayed in touch with her through social media—partly because her fascinating, thoughtful Instagram account is so full of wisdom and depth, and partly because she led me to reach out to MoM.
Continue reading to find out more about Marin.
Marin Sardy is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir The Edge of Every Day: Sketches of Schizophrenia (2019). Sardy’s essays have appeared in the New Yorker, Tin House, Guernica, the Paris Review Daily, the Missouri Review, and many other journals, as well as in two award-winning photography books. A Pushcart Prize nominee, Sardy has three times had her work listed as “notable” in the Best American series, and she has been awarded residency fellowships at Hawthornden Castle and Catwalk Institute. She holds an MFA from Columbia University and teaches nonfiction writing for Pace University and Authors Publish.
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.”
SLQS is a Franco-Vietnamese artist living in East London. Her work is interdisciplinary and questions the politics of space and who is excluded from it. SLQS makes and holds space as a woman, a person of mixed heritage, a foreigner, a mother and an artist. She invites her audience to decolonise spatial orders from imperialist, sexist and racist structures. SLQS has presented work at Totally Thames, Spitalfields Music, Rich Mix, Procreate Project, the Live Art Development Agency, the Royal College of Art, the Brunel Museum, the Migration Museum and the Attenborough Art Centre. She is a board member of the Creative Think Tank for UK New Artists.
The HBAC Performance Manifesto was written from my personal experience of being pregnant and not given access to a home birth or the birthing centre. Having previously had a caesarean, I was labelled ‘high risk’ and was not being heard.
On 4th and 5th November 2018, over 25 hours, I performed the act of giving birth at home with the support of two independent midwives. The birth was documented as an act of everyday life in the domestic space, with cameras set up in my kitchen, my bedroom and my living room. The Manifesto declares my views on birth as an every day performance and Home Birth After Cesarean (HBAC) as being a safe birth
option. It was published by the Association for Improvements in the Maternity Services (AIMS) in 2020.
Independent midwifery supports choices for women by providing evidence based information and continuity of care to women. Since 2020, due to their insurance product being annulled, their home birth practice is now prohibited, threatening an ancestral profession and restricting women’s birth rights. A group of independent midwives are taking action and fundraising to set up their own insurance product owned by women, with the long term goal to set up a hardship fund. You can support their campaign here: Childbirth Choices Matters.
HBAC PERFORMANCE MANIFESTO
To the medicalised institutions, their medical staff and the health governmental bodies
ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?
NO I am not high risk
NO I will not go to the labour ward
NO I will not be immobilised by continuous monitoring NO I will not labour under time pressure
NO I will not listen to you
NO I will not be given a trial of labour
I WILL LABOUR!
Giving birth is an ancestral ritual which has been performed at home by women for centuries. An act which has ensured the survival of the human species.
Women and daughters have witnessed the act of giving birth for millennia. Women can perform the art of giving birth and every performance will be unique.
Giving birth is a creative act.
The ultimate act of transformation.
A HBAC (Home Birth After Cesarean) is a political act attempting to shift the power from an obstetrically-led medical institution to a woman-centred care approach.
Labour is a durational performance: starting spontaneously with an unexpected duration.
A HABC gives time to the performance of labour. There is no failure to progress, only failure to wait! Patience and respect for the process is practiced.
A HBAC requires participants to support the performer throughout the act of birth. Midwives, partners, family members, friends will be chosen in advance by the performer to participate in the event.
A HBAC enables the performer to control her birth. She is informed and capable of making the right decisions for herself and her baby. She rejects the politics of fear and failure institutionalised by hospital birth.
A HBAC should be available to all women without resistance. All women are eligible for care and should be in control of their choices without judgement.
I AM STRONG
I AM CAPABLE
I TRUST MY BODY I TRUST MY BABY
The performance of HBAC is not a medicalised event. It is a holistic act celebrating life itself. HBAC is performed without the traditional medical props.
NO Forceps NO Ventouse NO CTG
NO Cannulas
NO Augmentation Drugs
NO Amniotomy
NO Epidural
The performance of HBAC challenges the current medical hierarchy of birth. Verticality is replaced by horizontality.
The performance of HBAC reframes birth as an event in a woman’s life in her domestic environment. There is no drama.
Giving birth is a woman’s right of passage into motherhood. A physical and mental journey leading to an act of transformation. Such a journey requires preparation and planning, knowing that unforeseen circumstances can change the course of actions.
A birth plan is a manifesto of personal preferences.
In the performance of HBAC, hospitals and obstetrics interventions are for emergencies only. Giving birth is an innate performance. A primal aptitude buried deep inside every woman.
The performance of HBAC redefines risk. Risk is not measured as a possible scar rupture but as avoiding another assisted birth and future mental trauma associated to this experience.
The performance of HBAC promotes independence. INDEPENDENCE in the choices the performer makes about her birth. INDEPENDENCE from hospital’s policies
INDEPENDENCE from unnecessary medical intervention.
The performance of HBAC respects the culture of birth and the art of midwifery. The performance of HBAC is an act of activism.
Written by Sarah Le Quang Sang, October 2018,
In Flat 55 Maitland House, Bishops Way, London, E2 9HT
“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.
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 Nowackijoined 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, andMary 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 waveLexy 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
Today is the 100 year anniversary of WOMEN GETTING THE VOTE in America. This is such a big deal!
Hard to believe, I was born only 37 years after this law was enacted.
Suffragette Sitting Room, MOM, NYC
At the Museum of Motherhood in NYC, we had an area called the Suffragette Sitting Room, where mothers would come and gather with their infants under the banner of these fearless warriors who marched, protested, and even starved for the right to be considered equal citizens.
I always find a way to include these foremothers of the feminist waves in the college classes I teach and remember fondly
Housewives On Prozac Band
the days when my band, Housewives On Prozac, was privileged to play the great city of Seneca Falls, New York, raising awareness about many of the issues mothers in America face. Those outstanding problems continue to include a continued lack of federally mandated paid parental leave, affordable childcare, accessible & adequate healthcare, as well as the issue of those who are home caring for loved ones without pay or social security in America today.
Let us not forget also, the simple willingness to declare “All people are created equal” according to the as-of-yet unratified ERA Amendment.
Thankfully, the fight for equality, access, and respect are continuing. From the Women’s March in Washington in 2016 thru the present, I am so grateful to those worthy and peaceful activists at work in the #MeToo and #BLM movements who also see goals worth striving for. Let freedom ring.
MAM is a new art magazine focusing on artists from around the world producing work about the maternal.
The first issue, “Stay At Home”, due out in June 2020 is a response by 20 artists to their experiences of working at home during the COVID-19 pandemic. The magazine aims to support artists through this challenging time as well as raising money for Women’s Aid*.
“Stay At Home” has been edited by Helen Sargeant, an artist and academic based in Todmorden, Yorkshire, UK.
Contributions include paintings by Shani Rhys James and Jessica Timmis, collage work by Lauren McLaughlin, an interview with Paula Chambers who makes installations and sculptures about disrupted domesticity, a series of self-portraits, “PRONIA” by performance artist Nicola Hunter, “Knitted Houses of Crime” by Freddie Robins and exquisite paper-cuttings of matriarchs by Pippa Dyrlaga.
“Stay At Home” is a response to the pandemic, the interruption, and anxiety that each day we are all having to live with. MAM was born initially as a way to distract me from looking too often at the news and becoming depressed, a way to be creative, collaborate, communicate and engage with other artists and mothers during this crisis. MAM’s wish is that this first issue of the magazine will provide its readers with a small moment of joy during this international crisis. MAM: Stay At Home, has been produced at the kitchen table in-between the on-going drama of daily family life, the caring and coaxing of children to do their schoolwork, the cuddling of cats, cooking, clearing up and feeding the washing machine with yet more laundry.”
MAM Editor – Helen Sargeant
* We have chosen to support Women’s Aid as domestic violence has risen by 50 percent in the UK since the lockdown began.
Helen Sargeant editor of Maternal Art Magazine introduces the art work of Rachel Fallon
Rachel Fallon – The MotherHood 2015
I first encountered Rachel Fallon’s work through the Desperate Art Wives Collective. I was immediately drawn to her works about female identity, confinement and the domestic such as Built in Kitchen 2012, which holds such resonance now during this time of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Rachel is a dear friend of mine and we have been lucky enough to have worked together on many art projects such as The Egg The Womb, The Head and The Moon (2013-2014), Project Afterbirth (2015), Artist As Mother As Artist (2016) and MAM: Stay At Home (2020).
At first, I exchanged slug mail with Rachel, which included drawings and stories of our lives before we became mothers. I was enthralled by the letters that I received and of Rachels accounts of working for a traveling circus across Europe and then living as an artist in Berlin.
It is however her intelligent, personal, political, and thought-provoking art work that continues to act as a catalyst for our communications.
About
Rachel Fallon is a visual artist who deals with themes of protection and defense in domestic realms and addresses the topic of motherhood and womens’ relationships to society. More recently her work has begun to focus on reverse parenting, examining the correlation of roles and duties in elder and parental care and the complex landscapes of mothering.
Built-in-kitchen 2012
Her work encompasses sculpture, drawing, photography and performance and is firmly rooted in processes of making. As well as an individual practice, she is known for her collaborations with Irish and international artists and collectives; including Artists’ Campaign to Repeal the Eighth Amendment, Desperate Artwives, Grrrl Zine Fair and The Tellurometer Project.
La Befana – performance- 2016
The two disparate ways of working feed into one another and are therefore equally important parts of her practice. She is a founding member of pff Publications – a feminist zine and Outpost Studios an independent artist-led studio. Her work is held in public and private collections including the Collection of the Arts Council of Ireland, the National Museum of Ireland, the Wellcome Collection, U.K.and Goldsmiths Womens’Art Library, U.K.
Selected Images:
Aprons of Power Performance – ACREA – Repeal 2018 (Homepage, featured image and below)
