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Posts tagged ‘Creativity’

Oct 22

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The dissonance of music and motherhood

clarinetShortly after blogging about Rachel Power’s important book The Divided Heart: Art and Motherhood, I came across a personal essay by Diana Cassar-Uhl that poignantly illustrates the pain of a “divided heart” that so many artist mothers experience. When you’re devoting time to your children, you’re alienated from your creative work. When you’re devoting time to your art, you’re alienated from your children. When your art is your profession and you’ve spent a lifetime becoming an artist, this dichotomy can be intense — as Diana expresses so beautifully in her essay, which appears below.

This essay originally appeared in ICView, the magazine of Ithaca College, and won second place in the magazine’s 2009 arts and literary contest. Reprinted with permission. (Many thanks to the author and ICView.)

Conflict of Interest
By Diana Cassar-Uhl

I’m contemplating ending my career as a clarinetist. It’s a choice I never expected to face. I thought I’d stay at my job until retirement. Music chose me. I know I could never have pursued anything else without feeling paralyzing regret.

I’m not sure how I got here. One might assume that giving birth to my first child was the turning point that ripped me from my commitment to music, but I experienced a career-defining performance when Anna was not yet eight months old.

About two years ago, at what might have been my last solo recital, another musician was amazed that I, a mother of two young children, could give a recital. I wanted to tell her that I wasn’t balancing my career with motherhood the way it seemed I was, that I was losing my mind and felt completely out of control.

My recital program spoke of my past, my present, and my future as a musician and as a human. I had no idea just how connected to that music I would feel until I was giving the performance. It was the first time in years that I wasn’t just playing the notes. I had a lot of things to say — about who I was, what I am going through, and what I desire.

I finished my recital with Appalachian Spring, and it was the stuff dreams are made of. My heart was on my sleeve during those 25 minutes of my life. There were exquisitely musical moments, and the big, sweeping statement of “Simple Gifts” told everyone what I really want — to be simple and free!

I sobbed, right there on the stage. I was filled with joy and sadness and direction and confusion all at once. I crave the simplicity of motherhood, without the shackles of all this “otherhood” . . . the tangible pain that has crept into my musical experience; the despair I feel to my core because I can’t ignore the dichotomy: there are instances of humanity and beauty in my job, but they are overshadowed by cynicism.

This is why I struggle with the difficulties of balancing my hard-sought career with my even harder-sought family. I can’t pretend to feel proud that I’m leaving my children. This negative force brings me frustration and illness. My children are infected with my anger.

I don’t know whether I’ll stay or go. Music has forever claimed a part of who I am. I don’t know whether I’ll find a way to satisfy that need, or if that part of me will go unanswered.

~~~

It’s hard to come up with words to ease Diana’s heartache, isn’t it? I think it takes another professional musician to speak with authority to Diana’s experience. About two years ago, I interviewed classical guitarist Berit Strong for the book I’m writing about artist mothers. Because Berit’s words might be of some comfort to Diana — and the rest of us, of course — here is an excerpt from that interview.

Berit Strong: Music and motherhood

Berit Strong, an award-winning classical guitarist, lives in Acton, Massachusetts, with her husband and two children, 10 and 12 years old. She has performed in hundreds of concerts around the world. She also teaches students at all levels, privately and at area organizations.

When her children were first born, Berit took a break from performing. But a few years later, when her children were 1 and 3, Berit received an invitation to play a concerto with a large orchestra. The piece was one of the hardest in the guitar repertoire, and one that Berit had dreamed of playing since she was a teenager — Joaquin Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez. Although it would take a year of preparation, she couldn’t say no.

With an infant and a toddler at home, Berit cobbled together practice time through part-time preschool, a few hours of day care, her husband, and capitalizing on any opportunity to pick up her guitar. Sometimes she’d take an evening “nap” and then get to up practice from midnight to 2:00 a.m., or wake up at 5:00 to get some time in before the children work up. “I needed time to memorize really hard music. I couldn’t get that time free of interruption otherwise. And sometimes I’d let them watch an hour of TV in the morning. I tried to be really strategic and practice during every moment of that time. When you want to keep your fingers in shape, just as a baseline, you need to practice your scales for 45 minutes a day. I think with writers, they say your daily output just to stay ‘in shape’ should be 1,000 words a day. It’s the same with any discipline.”

To find enough time in the day to practice scales, learn the new music, get it down perfectly, and memorize it, Berit made conscious concessions. “I got in the habit of doing the house and the dishes at 3:00 in the afternoon. I had this rule that I wouldn’t do any dishes until then. I had to make the most of my biorhythms. Once the kids were occupied, I would practice. I think that made me a better mom than being a goody-goody and doing the dishes in the morning.”

The intensity of Berit’s life during that period made her laugh at the idea of having it all. “When people used to ask me how I balanced my life, I would say ‘You must be kidding!’ There is no such thing as balance. The ancient Chinese didn’t believe in balance; you have to be really intense about your life. Certainly when I was preparing for that concert, balance was a ridiculous concept. I didn’t see anybody, I didn’t socialize. I was getting ready for a concerto. I was happy to sacrifice anything else. No time for jogging, I didn’t promote my career, this was the chance of a lifetime. I once lived in Italy for two years. They think that Americans are laughable in the concept of balance. You can’t have both — it’s really hard to have everything the way you want it.”

Despite the sacrifices, Berit made it work, and focused on the positives. “I didn’t feel guilty because I had really good daycare and my husband was really great. Well, maybe I had a little bit of guilt, but not much because I knew I was a better mom. I was watching them carefully, though, because they were so young, and if you have a workaholic mom, who knows what will happen. It was a finite amount of time, but it was really hard. My husband was really supportive, even though he’s not a musician. He has no vision of what I have to do and how much work I have to do. And there were times when the kids just wanted Mommy. I think there were a couple of instances when the kids were screaming and I had to practice. It was expensive, too. They paid me, but I had to get extra time at daycare. But it was worth it. It was an investment in my career.”

And then, after a year of work and stress, it was all over in a few hours. “When the concert was over, my life really did go back to normal, and I am more of a stay-at-home mom. Being a musician, you get depressed and sad when the concert is over — something you worked so hard for is over in 35 minutes. It was a great moment, but it was over. When you go to a museum, pieces hang there for years. But with a concert, that’s it.”

Today, Berit is still performing, but hasn’t advanced in her career as much as she might have. This was another conscious choice, and an adaption. “I haven’t gotten my first commercial recording out yet. I might be kind of burned out. It’s a wavy thing. It’s hard to keep going sometimes. How can I be a happy person and perform? Classical guitar is so detail oriented — I’d rather play something easier.”

So Berit has found a new outlets. “I keep dreaming of finding more time to be creative. I’m performing more on the viola de gamba now. I met this instrument in college — my husband got me one three years ago. It’s an early music instrument of the 1400s, sort of an early cello, but it has frets and six strings. It’s easier, in a way. I can sit down and sight read and have a blast — it’s really hard to do that on the guitar. I play in two early music groups. We have metal bass strings and gut strings, really gorgeous. When you’re in the guitar world for so many years, it’s nice to have to an instrument that I can sustain — a bow — there’s something about the sound that gives me strength, especially in dealing with my parents. It makes me feel very good. It’s important to have an instrument that you like. My dream is to be better at the gamba.”

For schedule, Berit can usually push for a finite period. “I can go really hard for two or three months. If I worked really hard, had a few concerts, I’ll take two or three weeks off because it’s better for my ear.”

Despite peer pressure, Berit is satisfied with the choices she’s made — for now. “I don’t think that fame is really important. Before children, I was performing in Europe and everywhere, but in terms of quality of life it’s pretty cool to hang out with your kids and watch them grow. I could have chosen to be all over the place, performing and recording constantly. I didn’t want to push myself like that. My colleagues are doing it, but I’d rather do a good job as a mom. I love traveling and meeting people, being taken to places that no tourists have ever gone to. I do want to go back to that, one day.”

For women in similar situations, who can’t travel and focus on a performance career in the way that they’d like, Berit recommends teaching. “I’ve been teaching for 18-20 years, and I think teaching is great. It’s a baseline for your creative identity. You don’t want to lose that completely. I make money, it keeps me in the music world, and I’m telling the students what I need to hear myself.”

~~~

Voices from the chorus? If you were Diana, might you feel buoyed by Berit’s story — or deflated?

Afterthought: I believe that my son, who is a freshman at Ithaca College School of Music — Diana’s alma mater — will probably never experience the division that Diana faces. One day he may have a child, but I don’t think he’ll ever consider hanging up his guitar, no matter how much he falls in love with his offspring. Somehow it’s just different for dads. Even artist fathers who are committed caregivers and are deeply involved in their children’s lives don’t seem to grapple with the “choice” that mothers must face. Men are for the most part “allowed” to follow their creative genius wherever it takes them without being accused of abandoning their children. They also don’t seem to feel that leaving their children behind “by choice” is frequently synonymous with having their hearts ripped out. And of course, they don’t seem to carry the blame when there are no clean socks and the fridge is empty.

Why is that?

[photo courtesy aussiegall under a Creative Commons license]

Oct 19

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The miracles of attention and focus

Canadian painter Robert Genn has a twice-weekly newsletter that I always enjoy reading. While Genn writes about painting, his thoughts usually apply to any creative pursuit, including writing — and I have reposted his letters here before. This week’s newsletter is of use to all creative mothers, in our search for making the most of fleeting and sporadic windows of creative opportunity. (Genn’s newsletter is reprinted here by permission. Thanks again, Bob.)

During a recent short workshop, I reintroduced my legendary hourglass. Bought in a junk shop some years ago, its “hour” consists of only 37 minutes. Such is the deflation of time. The idea for the 25 participants was to complete a painting in one turn of the glass. To level the playing field, I asked for 11 x 14’s. A few students groaned; others readily accepted the challenge.

We did the exercise three times. I asked them to squeeze out first, contemplate for a tiny minute and make their painting either from reference, reality, or their imagination. Blowing my little whistle to start and stop, I was not surprised to find some painters did more than one in the allotted time. Students brought their quickies forward and laid them out in rows. At the end of the workshop more than 100 time-sensitive paintings had been produced. We’ve put a photo of the hourglass in action at the top of the current clickback.

Apart from producing a pile of credible, pleasantly-underworked paintings, the exercise showed the value of short periods of full attention and unwavering focus. The mind quickens and so does the spirit. The audacious brush flicks here and there; the work moves holistically into being. Students were energized by the exercise — feelings of fulfillment and satisfaction rippled through the room. I thought of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s words: “To fill the hour — that is happiness.”

Countless times in my own studio, I’ve turned over my miraculous hourglass. Falling roof-rafters could not deter me from my 37-minute exercises. “Why don’t I just do this all the time?” I ask myself. Indeed, learning to focus and pay attention, if only for a short time, has been identified as a primary key to the development of human effectiveness.

I’m currently reading Winifred Gallagher’s new book Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life. She makes clear the simple value of training ourselves to focus. Our levels of concentration may be sullied or even vestigial in many of us, and the simple act of learning to pay attention is key to our dreams and aspirations. Happiness and success depend on it. Think a bit, grab your brush, time’s a wastin’. Toot!

Best regards,

Robert

PS: “I love deadlines. I especially like the whooshing sound they make as they go flying by.” (Douglas Adams) “Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.” (Alexander Graham Bell)

Esoterica: “The Universal Society of Timed Painters” (USTP) ought to be established with chapters worldwide. No instructor need apply. Just get together and turn the glass. Keep doing it until pleasantly exhausted. Prizes may be awarded by popular vote at the end of the day, but the greatest prize of all will be your own increased levels of attention and focus.

I found Genn’s letter to be just what I needed to read right now. Writing or painting or doing anything creative “under the gun” forces you to turn off the editor and just produce. If your editor has taken over, a timed exercise such as Genn outlines above is just the ticket for getting back into the organics of your work. Baby just went down for a nap and the only thing you can count on is 30 minutes? Forget the laundry, turn off your internet connection, and go for it. You might get lucky: you find yourself in the groove and the baby ends up napping for an hour and a half. Or maybe you only get 20 minutes — but 20 minutes is still better than NOT 20 minutes, yes?

Oct 13

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Brittany: Creative Journey

*cross-posted from my personal blog*

Today was a good day.

We all have runny noses around here, and since the weather is pouring-down-crappy and there’ve been confirmed cases of swine flu at the preschool, I decided that was reason enough to let Sam play hooky today.

After John took his morning nap, the three of us went to paint pottery at a nearby studio, which has quickly become my go-to activity with Sam. The boy has some untapped artistic abilities, and he really seems to enjoy it. Sam and John worked in tandem on a Christmas gift (I can’t say for who because they might read my blog on occasion) and I bounced back and forth between them, pouring more paint and encouraging them to go nuts.

When I pictured motherhood, this is not what I saw of myself, strangely enough. I know I probably come across as artsy fartsy and free-wheeling, but I really have a hard time with the whole “going nuts” aspect of life.

If you think about it, all my hobbies have pretty stringent rules. There’s writing, with enough rules regarding structure, grammar, and spelling to give anyone a migraine. Embroidery, with its color-only-in-the-lines patterns, as well as the edict from above that the back should look as seamless as the front. And although I’ve tried it a couple of times, I’ve never been able to pull off anything but a realistic-looking doll.

In my personal life, too, I can’t look back on any period of my life and say “I was totally out of control then.” I attempted, on a few rare occasions, to get drunk and throw caution to the wind, but my conscious, an internal-harping-elderly-kill-joy quickly badgered me into returning to the straight and narrow. I’m just not comfortable saying “Do whatever you like.”

But I did it today.

The pottery the boys made today is going to look gorgeous after it’s fired, and it is 100% their work. I have a strict “Mommy-Hands-Off” policy when it comes to their artwork. And that is why there are drool marks in the paint, handprints, finger-painted swirls, drips, streaks, brush strokes, sponged dabs, and streams of colors not found in nature.

There is a saying for teachers — “The one who’s doing the work is doing the learning,” which basically means that if you want someone to learn something, you as the teacher must facilitate the experience, but then take a step back, and let your students do it, explore it, internalize it and learn it for themselves.

In stepping back, I’m learning a lot from my boys. Little boys can make stunningly beautiful objects with minimal supervision. There are no bounds to their creativity. They know how to go nuts. And they do it spontaneously and joyfully, just like they do everything else in life when they are allowed to act freely. It makes me happy watching all that joy pour out of them. They are overflowing with pleasure and satisfaction and a sense of “I did that” without feeling constrained by any pre-conceived notions.

It’s a lesson I should put to use in my own work. Lately, even though I have a new-and-improved plot for my novel, I have a pre-conceived idea in my head of what it should look and sound like, and I can’t even get an outline written that will translate to the page. I wish I wasn’t so overburdened with plans and could just let go and write.

But even though my own creative output has currently slowed to a trickle, I can feed my need to create, at least vicariously, by facilitating the boys’ creativity. It gives me the same rush as if I’d done the art myself, because art is all about exploring possibilities, and wherever my boys go, my heart travels with them.

Oct 9

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Kelly: Let the Crap Go

Spill It OOlivia created this canvas with me on Saturday. I was working on my Spill It! assignment for Carmen’s class, and Livvie decided she wanted to try along with me.  (Sarah chose to paint an “Open” and “Closed” sign for their room instead.)  She was following along with me for the most part when I looked over at her and realized she was crying. Oh goodness. I immediately went over to her with my paint covered hands, tried to give her a hug without getting paint all over her, and asked her what was wrong.

“I keep messing it all up, Mama!”  Livvie is a bit of a perfectionist.  The one thing she was doing differently than me was that she was using a paintbrush, not her fingers, because she didn’t want to get paint all over her fingers (which surprised me because the child has no issue getting completely covered with mud in the back yard). But I guess—maybe because of her art resource period at school?—she thought that painting with a paint brush was the “correct” way to paint. I quickly took her over to my laptop and showed her some of the canvases our class had posted in our ning group…to show her that, like mine, none of them were “perfect.”  (No offense to my Spill It! friends!)  After that, I asked her to consider putting her paintbrush down, and I helped her smush some paint around with her fingers. Then I showed her how we could take the opposite end of her paintbrush and draw smiley faces in the wet paint.  That got her. 🙂  From there, she tried a little of the bubble wrap method and then dipped the heart shaped cookie cutter I had given her into her pink paint and added the heart you see in the middle. After the addition of the stickers, she declared it done with a quiet smile on her face, remnants of tears still on her cheeks.

I’ve been thinking about that all week, particularly in regards to the expectations we put upon our children and our selves. I didn’t have any expectations for Livvie’s painting; I just wanted her to have fun. But because of her own expectations, she wasn’t having any fun at all at first. She’s been struggling a little at school, and we’ve had to meet with her teacher.  Boy, did that break my heart. I was heartbroken for her because she was struggling, and I know that she notices that Sarah hardly ever struggles with her schoolwork, and I was heartbroken for me because she wasn’t meeting the “standards.”  Terrible of me, huh. What standards? My standards? No, I guess they weren’t my standards, they were the school’s standards, but I realized my standards when it comes to academics are probably pretty high, too. She’s in first grade, for Pete’s sake! I have to admit, I never struggled in school. Not even through grad school. School just always came easy to me. But I see that it doesn’t come easy to Livvie just yet. She’ll get there; we’re committed to helping her at her pace, in whatever way she needs, providing mountains of encouragement and positive reinforcement along the way. We’re spending more one-on-one time with the two of them while they are doing their homework, so Livvie doesn’t have that in-your-face opportunity to compare herself with her sister.

Back to my expectations of myself…  I guess because I was always good in school, I expected that I’d be able to help my girls be good in school. I’m finding that that’s going to be a big learning process for me. And then I think about my expectations in regards to all this art stuff. I’ve always played with art. But when I started playing with mixed media, I realized I was definitely going to have to lower my expectations for myself.  The first mixed media piece I created with Wyanne taught me a big lesson. Like Livvie, I too, was a perfectionist! Wy sweetly told me that I was just going to have to let that “crap” go, just play, and not worry so much about the end result. Maybe that’s a really good life lesson too.  Let the crap go…just play…and maybe everything will fall into place as it’s meant to be. That’s definitely a good lesson for me right now.

Oct 8

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Cathy: The Next Big Thing

crossposting from musings in mayhem

Why is it even when I have several projects I could be working on, narrowed to two that I am working on (read procrastinating) that I generally have at least part of my writer’s eye on The Next Big Thing?

This is also true in the home improvement arena, you should see what I’ve come up with for the addition now that we are paying a mortgage and have a yard of our own rather than renting a condo.

I mean I could also be focusing on getting those wonderfully folded piles from last week into dressers before starting this week’s loads. But I’m already a day late anyway, and have no earthly idea how it is that I wash the same five outfits per family member twice a week and there are still piles of folded and sorted laundry sitting from two weeks ago.

I’m planning next spring’s gardens while the plots are currently filled and continuing to fill with weeds. I really need to buy more sand to add to my clay soil which needs to be turned and covered, with compost, too, before I start plotting next year.

I am also dreaming baby names, when I know, logistics and physicality have set in stone that C is the last of my progeny. I am thinking of new baby names instead of being present with the three kids I have now.

I can use the baby names for characters, but that is the only technical resolve I have for this dilemma I have that the next thing is better than the present. It’s sparklier, it’s as tempting as a dessert sitting on the counter while I’m preparing dinner.

Something about the new, the imagined, the dreamed is much easier because I can keep my hands clean thinking about it while the dirty work of the present is a constant.

Maybe I just have trouble with finishing, with letting go, with saying finally, for the last time, that this version of the poem, the children’s novel, the article is good enough just the way it is.

I’m sure there is a psychological disorder with a big fancy name for this. It has conveniently slipped my mind.

Sep 25

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Cathy: Not selling myself short

Crosspost from musings in mayhem.

The question of balancing motherhood and creativity arises constantly. The other day, I read a very interesting wake-up call over on and her head popped off. I loved the photograph of the mom going ahead with painting whilst her toddler hung upside down, squiggling on her lap. The mom in the photo is continuing her creative work regardless of being a mom as is the photographer and author. The essence of what Terri wrote was just shut up and do it. If you really want it, you’ll make it happen.

I think that’s why a lot of us mother-writers blog. It’s a piece of writing, that while it may not necessarily change the world or be the next Great American Novel, keeps us going. We can do it in the snatches of time during naps, or a bit of quiet while school aged kids are out of the house, in between loads of laundry and sinkfuls of dishes. We can focus for a few minutes, while our Big Project waits sometimes patiently, sometimes not so patiently for a chance to be the focus. We can do it while a wiggling toddler cuddles in for a snuggle while our fingers click away on a keyboard, like at this very moment that I write.

My old photography self of eons past has been relegated to largely okay pics of the kids and whatever catches my eye, with a little automatic easy camera rather than one I could make adjustments on, given the time and the perogative. The old dancer self still throws down in the kitchen periodically, albeit stiffly and ungainly. The old performer self regales at the dinner table in silly voices and fake opera, when I can get a word in edgewise among the constant stream of noise from all three kids. The old drawing self, will doodle now and then, and more often pretend large invisible canvases in sweeping gestures with my arms while I sit vegging out in front of the tv of an evening, too exhausted to do anything more. Honey must wonder what I’m doing over there, but is too polite or exhausted himself. Other times, I am making chi pottery, sitting with my hands balled around or manipulating invisible clay.

And I blog. I post something every weekday since I started this with the exception of when I took a summer excursion.

I know I have a manuscript that really wants to be finished and shopped. Believe me, if I could focus on that right now, I would. But when it comes to the big writing, I need more mental energy than I currently have. I also have three horizontal file drawers of poems and short stories that could use editing, compiling, submitting, as well as how many on the hard drive that need the same, and the three journals in my bedside drawer, dog-eared where good ideas are languishing. And then there’s that screenplay idea from about eight years ago that still won’t die, and I’ve lost the outline for ages ago.

But, for right now, This is what I can write, while I chase C away from the dog food again when things have gotten a bit too quiet. I’m doing a pretty fair job of it. And yes, I just wrote another very self-referential blog about blogging. But I’m doing it. I am writing.

Sep 21

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Brittany: Standing in Place

For three nights in a row, I have woken up between 1 and 2 am, and haven’t been able to go back to sleep. This usually starts happening in the fall when I go into “planning the next project” mode and I usually use these nocturnal awakenings to write whatever it is that is threatening to burst forth. But this time, my project in the works doesn’t seem that close by. Or pressing. This time, when I wake up, my mind is a complete and total blank.

My one consuming thought (though, ironically, it isn’t consuming enough) is “I have to get this weight off.”

My weight has not changed in over a year. And you can’t call it baby weight when your baby is no longer a baby. I am despondent. I went on Atkins and lost 16 lbs before my brother-in-law’s wedding, started cheating here and there and slowly gained a few lbs back, and then my mother came to visit and I packed on 10 lbs in just over a week (Hello Cortisol!). Now the fat sits like a flabby innertube right around my middle, preventing me from looking good in anything I wear.

And I want to lose weight. Very much. But I also want to eat. I’ve talked about my issues with food on here and on my personal blog before. I am definitely an emotional eater and this summer, while blissful in many ways, has also been highly stressful and frustrating. I just don’t seem to be getting anywhere. My creative life is at a standstill. All my big goals and aspirations are at a standstill. But my flab, is, unfortunately not at a standstill. I can feel it jiggling slightly as I type this.

Tom is trying to be helpful when he repeats the well-worn dieting mantra: work out more, eat less. But it makes me want to bash his head in a little. I don’t want to eat less. I already eat far less than I want to. I almost never get to indulge in truly naughty foods. I don’t bake. We never have dessert. Plus, I’m limited to budget cuisine that appeals to Mr. Picky and the Rug Rats. And I’m a steak with a blue cheese cream sauce/salad/artichoke hearts in mayonnaise/rich chocolate mousse kind of girl.

And I don’t want to work out more. I already wake up at the crack of dawn, carry two children hither and yon all day, and am frequently used as a jungle gym for their entertainment. That’s besides the fact that I’m not a hamster and I don’t find it particularly fun or gratifying to run in place for an hour at a time, at the gym, surrounded by skinny mothers, who have rock hard abs despite giving birth to five children.

I know some of you on here (Miranda, for example) are runners. There’s a part of me that longs to be out there with you, feeling the wind in my hair, and the road beneath my feet. But I was not built for high impact/endurance sports, and with every stride, I feel my arches and my pelvis screaming “STOP! STOP! FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! STOP!” And I do.

But I went to the gym twice this week anyway, and on Wednesday I discovered the elliptical machine. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, but it didn’t make me feel happy either.

When I start down a path in the process of a creative undertaking, I can quickly assess, right off the bat, if I’m on the right track or not. With exercise, I just don’t know. I know I’m burning calories and improving my cardiovascular fitness. But I just don’t feel like I’m going anywhere. Literally and figuratively. And considering the fact that I’m feeling so stuck creatively, I feel like I spend my days slogging through a never-ending quagmire of minutiae.

I am sick of the tedium of grocery shopping and buying the same groceries week after week after week. I’m sick of preparing meals every day. Of changing diapers every day. Of dressing and undressing children every day. Picking up the same toys. Of filling and re-filling sippies. Repeating the same requests. Getting the same responses.

I had a vague feeling that my life had become Prufrockian, and went back and read T.S. Eliot’s poem again, and sure enough, my subconscious was on to something. Especially this part:

For I have known them all already, known them all —
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all —
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

I know I sound very melancholy, but it’s hard to convey tone online. I’ve come to accept that I’m just not going to get to do what I want to be doing right now. To paraphrase Kelly and her latest blog, now is the time for standing in place, and the future is for moving forward.

Sep 15

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On Being a Vessel

A beautiful and interesting post on motherhood and creativity at WishStudio from guest blogger Suzanne Sperl. An excerpt:

i believe somewhere i read a quote from goldie hawn in which she referred to motherhood as being a vessel for your children to pass through — both literally and figuratively. being on the cusp of the birth of our second child, i can see the wisdom in her words. our children are separate of us the moment they greet this world. our job as mothers is to nurture, guide, teach, listen, and expose them to the beauty and wonders of this world — but they will always experience this in their own unique and individual ways.

as i started thinking about this, i realized creativity too passes through us in much the very same way. some seedling of an idea, a thought, a poem, photograph or painting begins within us but quickly becomes much bigger than us and we must ‘birth’ those ideas into reality — but they are never truly our own nor do we control them. they are born from us, contain pieces of us, but they are separate of us — and greet the world this way.

so in thinking about all of this, i wondered why it is that creative people (more personally, this creative person) tend to fear the creation of their ideas? when i started to think about creativity in the same way that i have come to view motherhood — i was reminded that we truly control so little in our lives. and some of the most successful moments we face are those when we are brave enough to step out of our own way, let go of the invisible leash of control, and just allow the moments to pass through us without resistance. in doing so, we seem to find strength, wisdom, and creative courage.

Read the full post here.

Sep 7

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Blog Spotlight: And Her Head Popped Off

The only thing better than discovering another very cool blog written by a creative mother is realizing that I actually KNOW the blogger, even if I use the term “know” rather loosely, as in, friend of a friend of a friend whose name rings a familiar bell.

terri3Such was the case with And Her Head Popped Off, the blog of photographer, writer, and mother of four Terri Fischer. Terri is a friend of Suzanne Révy, who you’ve met in these pages, and I think we have another connection as well.

Terri is the real deal. You’ve got to admire a woman whose About page goes like this:

Mine is a charmed and a blessed life, filled with beauty and lessons and joy.  Here I share my journey with you, as I precariously balance motherhood and creativity–two words that are at once both a paradox and a oneness.  I tend to alternate between obsessions, generally those that include writing, photography, and drawing, but…  these four (Kiki-9; Dimples-6; Mowgli-4; Shortcake-1) hoard most of my attention.

This is me, losing my fucking mind.

Maybe one or two of us can relate.

Check out Terri’s motherhood and creativity categories. Enjoy!

Aug 13

10 Comments

Brittany: Fly Anyway

There’s something about that line that speaks to me.

Lately, I’ve found myself having a near-obsession with birds. Not real birds, but folk art birds. The kind in profile, that are painted and embellished, and look as unlike real birds as it is possible to get. During my latest trip to Asheville, my grandmother insisted that I go through all my great-grandmothers old craft books. And in them I found pattern after pattern for these birds. Bird statues, bird mobiles, bird appliques, bird sculptures, paper birds, cloth birds, clay birds, wood birds… It was like some kind of sign, because I had previously spent hours scouring the internet for folksy bird patterns and came up empty handed.

I don’t know why I’m so drawn to the birds, except that they’re colorful and friendly, a little quirky, and make me feel happy. People who know me well know that I’m a deeply grounded sort of individual. I dislike flying — literally and figuratively. If you had to describe me in zoomorphic terms, I wouldn’t be a bird. And maybe that’s where the attraction lies.

I read an interesting interview today about Lady Gaga’s new tattoo. What, I’m sure you’re thinking, does that have anything to do with the conversation topic? Bear with me.

First of all, I like Lady Gaga’s music. It’s catchy, fun, better than some other options on the radio. But Lady Gaga herself? I hadn’t given her much thought, to be perfectly honest. But according to the article I read, this is what she recently had tattooed down her arm: “In the deepest hour of the night, confess to yourself that you would die if you were forbidden to write. And look deep into your heart where it spreads its roots, the answer, and ask yourself, must I write?” It’s a quote by Rainer Marie Rilke. I’ll admit I was a little impressed. I don’t really have a thing for tattoos (although I could probably be persuaded to ink a 1940s pinup to my bicep as a conversation piece), but as a writer, I can’t think of anything more appropriate to permanently etch on myself. And then she added something else in this interview that I can’t quite get out of my head. The article said “Rilke’s ‘philosophy of solitude’ spoke to her. The New York native called solitude ‘something you marry, as an artist. When you are an artist, your solitude is a lonely place that you embrace.'”

We talk here a lot about the demands on us as mothers, about how we’re pressed for time and space and energy to write. But one thing we don’t talk about is the inherent loneliness that comes with our chosen occupation. Recently, on my personal blog, I wrote about how being creative and near-mental illness go hand in hand. Part of that is likely due to the fact that creative people have deep, complex inner lives. As such,we’re driven by the compulsion to write (or create) that Rilke speaks of, and soon live mostly in our creative mind. Add to this the loneliness that is inherent to motherhood and you really do have to learn to embrace the solitude or you lose yourself in it.

Which brings me back to the birds…

I said it once before, but it bears repeating. Creative mothers are like caged birds. Our children have clipped our wings, our families, and the sheer domesticity of our mothering lives have become our cages, as have our responsibilities, and financial obligations. We can’t escape from any of it, but then again, maybe we don’t want to. Motherhood was a conscious choice we made. As was following the creative path. And yet we all yearn to fly around. See the world. Live in it a bit.

But ironically enough, life isn’t so free and easy for birds either.

They spend an inordinate amount of time caring for their young. According to a birding website at Cornell University, “Sitting on a nest may look easy, but it involves more trade-offs than meet the eye. When birds sit on eggs, they are not simply relaxing. They are regulating the temperature of the clutch… Although most people think of incubation as a warming process, birds may need to cool their eggs by shading or moistening them in hot environments. For example, one pair of Black-necked Stilts at southern California’s Salton Sea made 155 trips in one day to soak their belly feathers in water to cool their eggs.” It went on to say that, “Incubation requires a balance between sitting on the eggs to maintain their temperature and leaving the nest to refuel by foraging. Incubation thus involves a series of trade-offs: a female gains energy by leaving the nest to forage, but she must expend energy to rewarm or cool the clutch after returning.”

Isn’t that an apt metaphor for the life of a creative mother? And what bird, or mother, has the time to carve out time for relationships with all that traveling back and forth? Sitting on her nest, creating life, is not different than one of us being holed up alone in her studio/office/corner of the sofa working on her latest project. I look at birds differently now. Sure they like to hang out in flocks and travel the world, but when parenthood enters the equation, they are as tied down, lonely, and exhausted as any of us.

I think back to Cathy’s most recent post, where she described the temporary nature of parenthood. And I think of the yearly cycle of nest building, baby hatching, and nest leaving I witness each year in my own backyard. My boys are bigger now than they were yesterday. Soon they will fly away from me. Soon I will have plenty of time for free-flying and writing. But I will not want it. I will want my boys back.

Maybe I am more like a bird than I thought I was. And maybe I should look to the bird as a symbol for the course my life will take. Right now is my time to hatch my clutch, but soon I’ll have to fly anyway.

Jul 13

6 Comments

Kelly: Working Through Creative Mama Frustrations

So, we’re all creative mama’s here, right? We create, in whatever form, and we try to instill that creative juice in our children.  So what happens when those two worlds collide and you throw shoes?

My girls love to create art. I’m happy about that. We create art together all the time—at my art bench, at their art bench, on the side porch, on vacation—and they are developing a nice little talent. But after I checked my email this morning, I came downstairs to find that Sarah had broken one of our number one house rules, yet again:  Art supplies do not come upstairs; they stay downstairs in the play room/art room/room that does not contain furniture that we actually care about and would like to keep looking presentable. Caught your interest yet? So what art supply did my darling curly red-headed child bring up stairs?  Oh, only the most permanent of art supplies…that famous permanent marker we all call Sharpie. Yep, Sharpie….nice little Sharpie lines and squiggles drawn on my two-month-old, $3,000 Pottery Barn stone-colored sectional. When I made this particular furniture selection, I even talked with the salesperson about which fabric would be most kid friendly and went with the canvas twill at her suggestion.

I’m trying to find the humor is this situation and am failing miserably.  Sarah selected a hot pink Sharpie.  There is no hot pink in the room. Perhaps if she had gone with the orange to match the orange floral rug or bring out the orange in the terracotta walls…or the green to compliment the weathered green coffee table…or the aqua blue that shows up in my accent pillows…or heck! even black would have at least matched the piano!  Nope, she chose hot pink. Now I will say this is not the first time she has demonstrated her Sharpie love. There’s been a wall and a kitchen cabinet, and most distressing up until this point, my mom’s antique needlepoint footstool, which now says “I like Ike.” I don’t know who Ike is unless Sarah’s been channeling Dwight D. Eisenhower in her sleep.

So back to the throwing shoes part of the program. Yep, I threw shoes…I slammed doors…I even uttered a few choice expletives. I don’t do that often—lose my temper—but I did this morning, and I’m sure it wasn’t pretty.  Granted there are worse things in life to deal with. No one here is battling cancer or suffering from a heart attack. It’s just a couch (though I will repeat it is a brand new $3,000 couch that I haven’t even finishing paying for yet since I took advantage of that one-year no-interest financing offer). So what do you do when this happens at your house? We’re having a garage sale tomorrow. In it, I had hoped to sell our ten-year-old couch that was replaced by our now Sharpie-decorated sectional; Sarah took the scissors to that couch. Maybe I just need to put it back upstairs.

Jul 10

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WishMamas: On Creative Work and Motherhood

From the lovely blog WishStudio, a post on creative work and motherhood by writer and storyteller Jen Lee. Here’s an excerpt:

When my artist friends are deliberating about becoming mothers, I don’t say, “Oh, just go for it–it will be fine.” I know this dilemma well. It took me five years to make my decision–to choose motherhood–and I wasn’t even doing creative work before I became a mother. The decision to begin writing and travel down a creative path came out of the kind of moment I’ve often had since becoming a parent: I wouldn’t take this risk for myself, I would just settle for something here. But I will take this risk for my girls, because I want them to know anything is possible. I want to show them how to find and follow dreams. Now my creative work and my mothering are intertwined like a double helix.

There are greater demands on me as a parent than there were before–physically and mentally. I have so much less solitude and silence, and that has chafed at times. I find ways to build-in solitude, for my mental health as much as for my work. When my husband worked in an office, this meant that I left every Thursday night to go to the Chocolate Room. I could write, or read, or just stare at the wall–whatever I needed. Best of all, I could watch the humanity all around me without distractions and interruptions. Sundays were my day off. Still, I take Sundays to go on artist dates, go to yoga class, eat a meal alone, and then when I come home at dinner, I’m happy to see my children and ready to dive into another week.

Lots more in this post — read it here. You’ll definitely want to add WishStudio to your regular blog reading list.

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