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
We’ve got our plan of action: MoM needs to focus on FINANCIALS moving forward.
OUR ACTION ITEM: It’s all about the money! Throughout the years, many teams and individuals have helped to develop the MoM vision; its mission, its programs, and its outreach. I have strived to do my best, bringing this into the world because of a deep personal commitment to mothers everywhere – the labor they perform, their experiences, their hearts and a passion for the artistic and academic study of mothers and m/otherhood.
I moved MoM from New York City to St. Petersburg with the intention of seeing it grow and thrive after we were unable to secure a next-level space in Manhattan. Now that I have the flexibility to focus on this project full-time, I plan to solidify relationships in St. Petersburg while cultivating my personal live/work space which is now the non-profit MoM Art Annex.
The Annex serves as an incubator project for making the MoM vision to come alive in Florida. In order to do this, attention needs to shift. To that end, the next year will be almost exclusively focused on building our coffers through memberships, donations, grants, and partnerships. We must do this if MoM is going to thrive. Please join me in this affirmation and keep this top of mind and action! This is how we put M/otherhood on the Map. Please HELP US TRIVE! Join one of our many initiatives.
It’s Not Like We’re Slackers – It’s Been a Busy Summer!
Pictured here, summer interns Sarah Akomoh and Teddy Friedline
Intern, Mary Noah. BIG shout out for her work with MoM this summer. She has reconfigured our Wisdom Sharing Document and is finishing up our Grant Sharing Document. In addition, the website has been updated with all our new information as well as our work together honing in on ‘mission‘ etc. I believe the work is well-reflected on the site! Lastly, she leaves us with new logos and a Social MediaCampaign in place. Her diligence has greatly improved our infrastructure in Florida, picking up where our New York interns left off six years ago! THANK YOU MARY!
Intern, Sarah Akomoh contributed to our Grants Database and we will be submitting to the Pinellas Foundation this week. Sarah also got MoM listed here at Florida Arts Axis THANK YOU SARAH!
Intern, Teddy Friedline has been reworking language on the JourMS site as well as the SocMS site. This has enabled appropriate updates since the project was created in 2015. Teddy will be wrapping up a social media campaign about these initiatives with us in the coming weeks. THANK YOU TEDDY!
Intern, Emma Andrews has been working on a book project for Queering Parenting. She is endeavoring to create materials that will facilitate both a child’s perspective on identity as well as adult’s perspectives. Her presentation will be available online and she will present her work on August 22nd in our Online Community Portal 7-8:30PM EST. JOIN US IF YOU CAN!
Intern, Rithik Promod begins delivering his Fertility Goddess exhibit this week. We are LOOKING FORWARD!
We hosted 4 onsite Residencies this summer at the MoM Art Annex ranging from fine arts, to print making, to writing. SHOUT OUT TO: Jessica Caldez, Tara Blackwell, Gloria Munoz, and Rachael Grad.
Elena Rodz – Website Manager, has been so impactful, helping to redesign, upgrade, and empower our website infrastructure. Her work with us is ongoing, her expertise is in the museum and non-profit marketplace, and we are all better for her involvement! THANK YOU ELENA!
Deborah Gelch – Strategic Advisor and I continue to iron out technical details of our new infrastructure modalities including Salesforce, Constant Contact, and Quickbooks integration. We are poised for memberships and tweaking the design elements. On October 21, we collaboratively host our first community cocktail event on behalf of MoM in St. Petersburg. YAY DEBORAH!
Nicole Mussleman- JourMS Editor, has been hard at work on the editorial aspects of the Journal of Mother Studies. We have more submissions than ever before and are still planning on our September 1 online publication date. Nicole also won the very prestigious award at the Hemingway Society Conference 2022. YAY NICOLE!
I will be submitting recommendations to Tracy Sidesinger, Residency Coordinator; and Zabrina Shkurti, Living Board President this week, looking at ways we might maximize MoM’s mission with existing programs. Kasia Nowaski and I will be re-connecting in September over online course development.
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.”
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.”
Hello MOM Family! We ask you to join us in welcoming our new incoming JourMS Editor for 2022-2023, Nicole Musselman! Nicole has already initiated many efforts to support MOM’s latest CFP.
Nicole is part of the English Department at the University of South Florida as a Ph.D. Student and English Instructor. She is also the mother of a wonderful boy. We are so excited to see what Nicole will bring to this position this coming year!
Q. What led you on your path toward becoming an educator, and scholar and being interested in mother studies?
I was told from a very young age I may never have children. When I started my master’s degree in 2018, I began researching alternative forms of motherhood in nineteenth-century American literature. I became pregnant with my son in 2019. I continued studying motherhood from varying viewpoints in literature and the media.
Q. How did you find out about the Museum of Motherhood?
I was first told about the Museum of Motherhood by my mother-in-law. She watched the news, saw a short featurette on the museum, and sent it to me. This was early on during Covid, and I had a newborn at home, so I went online and visited the website.
Q. What made you want to work with MOM?
I believe that carving out a special place for mothers to come together and share their experiences is very important. The academic would, in particular, is long overdue for a journal focused entirely on mother studies, and the important roles mothers play in various fields outside of the domestic sphere.
Q. What are your plans for your time here at the museum? Or what are you most excited to do in your new role here as the JourMS Editor at MOM?
I am beyond grateful to be working with so many talented people interested in building a community for mothers and drawing attention to mother studies. I hope to bring new and exciting work to JourMS to provide a sense of awareness, community, and love in a world still reeling from the pandemic, Ukraine War, and continued racial inequality.
Q. What has been your most memorable experience through your work so far? Or what are you most proud of in your line of work up until this point?
I attended a portion of the MOM conference in March and was in profound admiration of every presenter. The honesty, raw emotional responses, and crucial academic work presented were amazing. I feel honored to have been a part of that audience.
Q. What would you consider to be one of the most impactful moments of what you consider the act of “mothering” in your life? Was it something you personally experienced or acted yourself?
My family had to make many sacrifices during Covid to keep our newborn son safe. It was very hard not to have visitors meet our newborn, but I believe we had the right decision as he was born five weeks early, and we were unsure how he would respond if he got sick from Covid.
Q. What would you consider to be one of the most impactful moments in HERstory that has impacted who you are today?
I think the idea of embracing that women are more than mothers or can mother in different ways without their own biological children. Going through infertility made me realize that so many forms of mothers are out there and need to be recognized.
Q. What would you consider to be a fun fact about you that you would want to share with the MOM family?
I already stated this earlier, but after being told I may never have children, I have a two-year-old son who loves dinosaurs so much it makes my heart melt.
Q. What thoughts would you like to leave our MOM family with as you begin this new journey with them through your future work here at MOM?
Being a mom or even trying to become a mom is hard. Never be afraid to ask for help!
Passionate about topics related to m/otherhood? Reproductive identities? Art? HERstory? Mothers Making Art? Mothers in Academia? Women and Gender Studies? Lifelong students can follow the Museum of Motherhood here, join our new ONLINE COMMUNITY, and we appreciate any and all support? Be sure to follow us on social media and check out our virtual storefront for merchandise!
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.
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
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.”
As January ramps up, Americans and indeed, people around the world, are experiencing a kind of deadening whiplash that feels deeply problematic. From pandemics to earth shattering social events, our planet seems to be pushing back in unprecedented ways. Are we going to listen?
Here at the Museum of Motherhood our aim is to inspire as well as to educate. How do we balance dire predictions, and unrelenting reality, with uplifting content? Do we pretend, making conscious decisions to ignore what is right in front of our faces, like the movieDon’t Look Up? Or, do we create small changes through everyday actions by staying vigilant, practicing tolerance, and also heeding the call to make amends, offer support, or reach out to someone in need?
What does change even look like anyway? How can we possibly have any affect on anything when everything feels bigger than us as individuals?
In my experience, it is the little things that count. It is the everyday actions of many people doing one brave, smart, or kind action that inspires connection, healing, and hope. I think our lives are made up of little moments. Those individual moments can be transformative: One football play can win a Super Bowl. One song can reach millions of ears with a message of encouragement (or laughter). One person, holding someone’s hand in a hospital can mean the difference between fear and comfort.
At MOM, we are comprised of the individual academics, artists, and students who gained insight during their time with us, the visitors who told us their secrets and asked for help, and the strangers who have connected through the years– who are not strangers anymore.
We are a small museum with big dreams. But, more than the big dreams, we aim to touch hearts and minds individually. We aim to offer a safe space of illumination and awe. I’m excited to introduce some new initiatives in the coming months that include an online community, our upcoming conference, and a newly launched storefront that will feature guest artists.
When a friend wrote me recently, and included a note (along with a check), that stated my/ OUR museum was wonderful – I realized a simple dream of mine – the dream that others would want to take MOM on as their own. It was never intended to be ‘my’ museum, even though I have been nursing it along all these years.
As we look back, let us also look forward. Let us rally against the darkness by joining our individual lights into a collective of lights, each bright, each different, and all connected. Let us remember the souls we have lost, while lifting our own spirits in unity and appreciation of this brief, difficult, and tenuous life we share on this planet and try to ‘do better’.
This #GivingTuesday we chose to share our mission and ask that you consider making a donation to show your support of these ideals. As we grow our collections, we further establish our presence in the world:
We are the first and only facility of its kind serving as a unique resource elucidating the art, science, and history of women, mothers, and the culture of family. The Museum’s purpose is to provide a place and platform for education, illumination, and inspiration. We believe a more comprehensive understanding of pregnancy, birth, and the value of care-work, will lead to healthier and happier homes, more productive workplaces, and better social policies. MOM Art Annex, 501c3 Florida Non-Profit I Motherhood Foundation 501c3 NY
MUSEUM OF MOTHERHOOD TODAY
Engage with people of all ages in an inclusive, supportive, and smart environment.
Elevate the artistic endeavors of m/others, procreators, dreamers, childless by choice, those experiencing fertility issues, and those who have suffered loss
Educate the public about women’s evolving histories, identities, and roles in the home and in society
Explore the science of menses, conception, gestation, birth, and matresence.
Examine policy and advocacy around parenting
Elaborate on pregnancy and birth as a sacred and creative act
Understand the concept and value of carework
Nurture those who nurture
Be an international destination for those hoping to learn about American motherhood
Celebrate our shared human heritage: We are all born of a womb as of 2021. What does that mean to you?
Museum founder, Martha Joy Rose with Mother Tree and Nest in the MOM Art Annex, St. Petersburg, FL
We are currently fundraising for the Mother Tree acquisitions campaign. Please #JoinMama:
