I'm elated, over-the-moon, and bursting with excitement that today I helped Lauren Nye (of the Susquehanna Art Museum) install the show I've curated. Mythologies of Motherhood will be on view from this Wednesday through June 26th. That means it is open to the public for FOUR MONTHS, including 4 FREE Third in the Burgs, and one FREE workshop on visual journaling with a focus on motherhood taught by yours truly with a supporting role from the lovely Phoebe Heath of Anthracite Creative Works (see y'all, we weren't done collaborating yet - I declared that on the day she resigned from our dynamic duo at PHS!) Here's a sneak peek of the show when I left: I am so happy to personally know many of the women in this show and call them "friends." There is a wonderful mix of professional full-time artists, artist-teachers, and creative pursuers. It is especially an honor to have this show on display right now at the museum next to another artist-mother who's children are continuing to share her legacy and an amazing landscape painting show featuring the Wyeth's work alongside many other American painters (including the Hudson River School). I'm humbled to share the same walls.
So, for tonight, I cannot stop smiling.
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The pitchAfter the last mom-themed art show, To Give Rise To in Lancaster City at the Community Room on King gallery space, I walked away with two thoughts: 1. this show (the work paired with the artist statements, plus the vulnerability of the artists in the show) really impacted people's lives in a way that NEEDS to continue in some form in this area (south-central PA), and 2. I am completely exhausted with the logistical work to make this show happen every year in the spring (read: during the school year and the art department's busy season). I decided to rest and not email every gallery in Lancaster again with pictures and beg for space to make our voices heard. Truth - I really did that after the first Motherhood Journey art show in 2019. While I waited, several people kept encouraging me with how the show impacted them and how the show was a form of ministry (and I know that's a heavy word with lots of connotations, so I use it cautiously, but I cannot deny where my heart is at with this show.) One day during the summer, I was casually scrolling through Facebook and I saw a friend of mine put out an update asking that if any artists wanted to collaborate with the Susquehanna Art Museum, to let her know. I did and found out that the museum would take care of a lot of the logistical work that I found exhausting to complete during the school year! (So that met one of my needs moving forward) AND the museum was interested in the show and could give me space to run a workshop that would allow mothers the opportunity to do some reflective art-making in conjunction with the show! (and that met the other need!) How AWEsome?! And so I began finding artists (which is easy because so many of them are my friends...is that cheating? Nah - I just run with a talented bunch of art-mamas. Here's the show synopsis: Mythologies of Motherhood chronicles personal stories of artists currently raising children. The artwork included draws attention to the disparities between the “ideals” of motherhood and the realities of actual family dynamics. This exhibition makes space for celebrating, commiserating, laughing, and reflecting upon our own development of personal mythologies in our motherhood experiences. Mythologies traditionally reference historical tales, but in a contemporary context that can be of a more personal nature. What myths of parenthood did you encounter or challenge with your own experience? The WorkMy two pieces for the show are a of a very new color palette for me. I think the spiciness of life has chipped away at my browns and golds I so often gravitate towards.
knew we were in trouble. So I made a U-turn right there on the highway and headed towards Great-Grandma's house. They lived on top of a hill. Luckily, she had one of Emerson's pull-ups but she didn't have any wipes. We made due. She made us some food and we waited to hear from daddy. Finally, we heard that daddy was able to get home, but he had bad news - our house was flooded and our roof leaked. We couldn't go back home, at least we couldn't stay there. So we packed up what we could and went to Grammy + Papa's house." The IronyOn day 34987598709879 of being quarantined since 2022 began...ok, so it was like day 30 or something like that, I realized that OF COURSE life and being a mom would collide hard with the show's finished work deadline and all of the other demands of being a teacher ending one semester and starting a new one (along with a baby shower for my SIL, more construction delays on our renovation project, a small-town art show in the middle of a snowstorm that I committed to months before). UGH. Yes, we were quarantined 3 times since the start of January - THREE TIMES! My son went to preschool/daycare for a total of 9.5 days from the start of 2022 until mid February. I think I took 16 sick days to not only have COVID but also to scramble to provide care for my quarantined kid. Somehow, a sleep deprived version of myself, surrounded in praying friends and curbside pick up, managed quite the feat and balancing act. But isn't that what the show is about? Messy life doesn't mean keeping regular studio hours for many of us, and that needs to be ok because regular studio hours don't make an artist (although, it would be lovely & helpful to have them!).
Why do we have art shows? Is it just to sell work? I don't think so - hanging your work and waiting for someone to purchase it isn't necessarily the best way to sell mass quantities of products. Is it just to get honest feedback? I don't think that's the reason either - you'll get quicker knee-jerk reactions from people on the internet. I propose we have art shows to engage with others and art at the same time - to celebrate, discuss, challenge, and appreciate in community. That was the most difficult hurdle for the art world during COVID because we couldn't be together. Many art programs and artists took to the internet to show their work. For us at the Palmyra HS art department, school shut down with our art show half installed, two weeks before the opening event. It was crushing for the students, but I would argue that it is equally crushing for the teacher putting hours into uploading images into a presentation for the internet to only have 50 people view it (we normally average around 200 in attendance at our in-person art shows). At the beginning of the pandemic, and as a district art department, we brainstormed and chose to not do the internet-based art shows, piggyback off of the library's initiative of the "bear hunt," and ask the students & community to place their artworks in their window. We called it "The QuARTantine Art Show." We made a map of the district, highlighted neighborhoods participating, created a Goosechase scavenger hunt, and invited everyone to chalk their driveways and walkways to gain attention. Mr. Carroll distributed coloring pages of caricatures of himself and decked out the family SUV and drove around for hours visiting the sites of the art "galleries," Mrs. Simpson installed an image of Kelsey Montague-inspired wings in her front yard for a photo op, Mr. Madonna created and managed the complex map, and Mrs. Heath and I created the Goosechase scavenger hunts, and when Mrs. Heath's baby came early, I left feedback on as many students' sidewalks as I could. We received a lot of positive feedback from the community about the three-day show and everyone seemed to really enjoy the needed levity and break from the screens! We were back to school in-person (but distanced, masked, and hybrid) in the fall, so once again, we were faced with the challenge of having an art show that couldn't be as large and indoors as we were used to. My new counterpart (Mrs. Heath took a year of maternity leave - good timing!), Miss. Moore, and I decided to have an outdoor art show using clothespins and the new turf field fence as the display hooks and wall. Miss. Moore also suggested a community collaborative piece, so we offered the community to design and weave a fabric strip into the fence. Of course it was the hottest day in May, but it was incredible and once again, the community was so appreciative and supportive of our attempt to have a "real" art show for the students. After all the crazy planning and adjusting caused by the pandemic, I feel that I now have a new understanding of the importance, purpose, and requirements of an art show. My definition of an "art show" is much more flexible than it used to be. So, after the past year + of unique school art shows, and after my own curated art show, and then my husband's art/craft show debut (turned family art display), when my almost-4-year-old son asked to have an art show, I said "sure!" I remember Phoebe telling me this story of her own son wanting an art show, so she popped some popcorn, he laid out his pieces, and he invited the neighborhood kids over to look at his work. I applied this equation (snacks + art + community) and added in my new found art show flexible thinking to give my son an art show in our backyard (and of course it rained). We changed the display method from our fence to string hung inside a tent, and, since it was already raining, we added in some messy non-traditional artmaking fun for toddlers. Despite the rain, much fun and artful learning was had by all (so much fun that I later discovered toy cars planted in my flowerpots)! Art Show Moral Take-Away (after 16+ months of creative problem-solving): ART + COMMUNITY + SHARING (and snacks, when available) = successful art show.
After an intense year of waiting and percolating in my own head with visuals and ideas about motherhood, To Give Rise To finally was born! The show opened on Friday, May 7th at the Community Room on King-the gallery’s very last show before the building owner converts all of the commercial space to residential units. It was also Lancaster’s first official in-person First Friday since the pandemic started. (So the show was very special to quite a few people for a lot of reasons.) Even though it rained, the gallery was packed with a steady flow of family, friends, and guests checking out the work of these artist moms. I was overwhelmed by the positive response we received from the community! The most common response was: “this is so thoughtful and so deep-these women are really insightful and talking about stuff that really needs to be talked about more!” It was also interesting to see how each work was uniquely able to connect with different people. Each person I spoke with picked a different work that really touched them. I’m so proud and thankful for the vulnerability and bravery in the moms that participated this year - your work impacted so many people! Between Friday night’s reception and Saturday’s Art Walk (complete with live artist demo from Jenna Minor Kline), the show raised $285 for the Milagro House! That’s way more than the 2 shows we did over nearly 2.5 months 2 years ago! Woo-hoo! I’m not sure what the next step is for this crazy idea/group show thing that I’ve been doing. One thing that kept coming up that evening and beyond was running a “class” of sorts that visually and creatively allows women to explore their own journeys as mothers. Right now, I’m resting and allowing that idea to simmer until it’s fully realized.
Links to participating artist's websites: Phoebe R Heath, Jenna Minor Kline, Leslie Gates, & Corianne Thompson Ecclesiastes 3:1Maybe it's the warmer weather and sight of daffodils, maybe it's the increase in (and my own!) vaccination that let me see a glimpse of the end of the pandemic, maybe it's finally setting dates with friends that I haven't been in proximity with for nearly a year or more, but I'm feeling hopeful this week. And that hope feels very strange after a year of trials. I am reminded that this life is a mixed bag - good, bad, joy, and sorrow. A piece that I am currently working on is an illustration of a story that I told my son to help him deal with the changing seasons - a lesson that I need to preach to myself daily! He wanted to save all of the icicles from melting one warm day in February after all of those snow storms. He threw himself to the ground crying over the icicles melting, so I tried to explain that the icicles have to melt for the flowers to grow and that everything has a season in life. (This story eventually backfired on me as now my freezer is full of icicles in ziplock baggies and he thinks that flowers come from planting icicles in the ground! 😂) I find it interesting that I am teaching my kid truths that I need convinced of daily. How often am I resistant to change or to something ending that I love and can't appreciate the changing seasons of life? So, this piece is about all of that. For this work, I am using my own photos to collage, drawing/painting, found objects, and my son's marks to create the imagery and tell my story. I call this working process a "mommage" and you can read more about my development of this idea here. I have been really interested in using a house-like silhouette as the picture plane for my work to discuss my family within a symbolic home structure.
The work posted here is still in process and I'm looking forward to sharing the final product with you soon! It's set. It's scheduled. There's a *facebook invite.* But this year it's different. We're going to attempt this again, but on a smaller scale. COVID canceled a lot, including my momentum-slowly-building motherhood themed juried art show: To Give Rise To. But a year later, after one of the most mundane, but also extremely taxing and imbalanced years of my life, I have a lot more to say and more visual stories to pull from than I could ever have anticipated. For me, I know that I found so much joy in watching the seasons change and exploring nature more with my son. It was truly a gift that as a teaching mom I may never get to experience again - and boy, did I document it! I'm so excited to share some of my new work that has come out of this intense season and I know that I'm not the only artist-mom who feels this way. This year's show is a curation of artist moms who participated in the first two iterations of this show: Phoebe Heath, Jenna Minor Kline, Leslie Gates, Corianne Thompson, Elizabeth Lee, Erika Kim Milenkovic, Andrea Klein, Marie Sellenrick, and Nichole Madonna.
So, mask up, come out, and join us in the conversation!
I've been taking a book arts class this summer and our first assignment is a zine. How timely for a period of social unrest and general pandemic chaos?? My zine is an endearing story of friendship between my son, who is white, and his best friend, who is “mixed.” They have known each other since they were 5 & 6 months old and they have been the cutest friends for the past 2.5 years. I juxtaposed their developing friendship as the main content of the zine against the racial injustice experienced in greater doses by young Black boys and men. I chose to leave out the boy’s fathers because I didn’t want to make it super obvious that his best friend is mixed – I wanted the viewer to be slightly startled by the stark contrast of images and text. I am also not Black and I didn’t feel like I could tell the fear side of the story because it is not my story to tell as I cannot fully comprehend it given my privilege. inside hidden layers of text – not meant to be directly read in their entirety to protect privacy (sorry!) – links to the blogs & tweets are here and here and the article that the list of names came from is here “We are the same as mothers” – Jehava Brown & “…I am so sick and tired of the sensational question to Black parents: “What will you tell your black son to protect them from dying?” when nobody asks white parents: “What do you tell your white children to stop them from killing?” – Derecka Purnell @dereckapurnell The hidden part of the book (or the inside) contains a limited list of unarmed Black men & boys, under the age of 26, who have been shot and killed since 2014 – the youngest being just 12 years old (and there were at least 50 names). On top of the names are text messages between my son’s best friend’s mom and myself discussing the current events and what to do if the situation became threatening to their family. I also took quotes from blogs that she shared about how white moms can be allies for their Black children.
I decided to go with the hidden book because I didn’t want the text and images to be integrated – I wanted the viewer to feel like this was a cute little story and then discover the text separately. I think reading it this way relates to the way we don’t see social issues until they are brought to our attention, and even then, we can continue with our blinders on, if it doesn’t affect us directly. I chose to work in black & white and embrace the zine’s historical use of the photocopier. I had my son do the abstract mark making as the background and then I photocopied and collaged the photos. After I finished each page of the work, I uploaded them to photoshop, played with the contrast to give it a grainy photocopier feel, and then imported the images into inDesign for the final layout. I kind of like the idea that there is no actual original hand-made copy of this zine in its entirety and I think that adds to the meaning as we grapple with what to do moving forward. I currently work with themes of motherhood and storytelling and have become more interested in giving up control by working with my son and including his marks in my artwork, so those parts fit right into my current investigations. I don’t typically create work that is socially-minded; however, I just couldn’t get past what is going on right now and thinking about how to prepare/educate my son – I feel a sense of urgency more-so because his friend is at greater risk (I can’t even type those words without that knot in my throat). I also wanted to challenge myself to give a nod to the history of the riot grrrl zines by creating one that had a social justice message from a woman/mother’s perspective. I am please to announce that the Motherhood Journey show will be continuing this year in May as part of the Lancaster Art Walk! The Community Room on King will be hosting and the show will be juried by Baltimore artist and Milked Magazine founder, Lee Nowell-Wilson! Once again, the show will benefit the Milagro House and feature a *surprise* collaboration.
I am super stoked about the positive feedback I received from the shows last year and loved seeing moms empowered with a public voice. If you or someone you know is interested in submitting work to the show, the call for work can be found by clicking the image above. Thanks for all of the support and passing along the info! I curated an art show about motherhood. Doing this show was part of my healing process that I started in therapy (see this post here). Here's a little more info on the show: "As I’ve been navigating my new role as “mom,” I’ve been fascinated with how diverse the trek to motherhood can be. Some of us struggled and cried for years to be a mother. Some of us accidentally were thrown into motherhood and rose to the challenge. Some of us didn’t struggle or weren’t surprised, but had other unique hardships and joys along the way. I was inspired to curate this art show based upon some of our motherhood journeys, while also raising support for other mothers – “mom-ing” is hard enough, y’all! The works in this show revolve around, depict the essence of, or tell a specific moment in the life of these artist/mamas." I invited the artists to donate a percentage of their sales to the Milagro House and 100% of the proceeds from card sales went to the Milagro House as well. Guests to the art show were invited to peruse the Milagro House's wishlist and bring along an item to help another mother in her motherhood journey. I really wanted this show to support and encourage moms! The first show was hosted at Main Street Mount Joy in May featuring the work of 11 artist-mamas. We added 4 more mothers and moved the show to Folklore Coffee & Co. in Elizabethtown for the month of June. In the end, we raised $165 for the Milagro House, along with donations of wipes! I was so encouraged by how much the show grew in such a short period of time - from 16 works by 11 artists to 34 works by 15 artists in less than a month. It felt contagious and seeing the spark of creativity reignited in these artists was amazing. I'm so thankful to everyone who played a role in seeing this show's success and I can't wait to see what next year holds for us! Below are some images from both show locations. |
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