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!).
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
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 was reading about Miriam Schapiro & Melissa Meyer's idea of femmage after Andrea Klein gave a talk about ways to genuinely include craft in the art room at the Pennsylvania Art Education Association conference last fall. I was thinking that there could be a subcategory of femmage for all the working artist/mom's out there called a mommage, as I believe our studio habits probably look a bit different than other women's studio habits. (I know that right after my son was born, I suddenly realized that the paints needed locked up and certain tools could not be kept out anymore. Additionally, I knew certain processes were not safe for me to do at all in my home anymore due to space restrictions.) So in preparation for the Motherhood Journey art show (opening in May in Mount Joy and June in Elizabethtown!), I set out to create the list of rules for what qualifies a work of art as a mommage.
Here's the list so far (and I'm totally open to suggestions):
*a woman who has become a mother by pregnancy (defined by conception but not limited by fruition), adoption, foster care, and/or surrogacy. (TO GIVE RISE TO) I'll post my results after I attempt this process. This is going to get personal. And maybe heavy. In May of 2017, when I was 30 weeks pregnant, someone shot into our home - straight through our newly painted nursery and into the back of our bedroom wall (we were unharmed). The week that followed this incident was full of doctor evaluations (to make sure the stress of the shooting didn't cause any harm to my baby) and police investigations in and beside our home. My OBGYN, in an effort to calm me down in her office after the shooting, told me, “Honey, women get pregnant and give birth in war-torn countries - you will be ok.” Those words really stuck with me and made me realize that my situation sucked, but there are other women doing this motherhood thing in far worse conditions than I. So, I started to document the events after the shooting using photography as a way to try to grapple with my loss of control over the period of time I expected to be nesting. 6 weeks later, I started therapy and the week after that, I gave birth to our son, less than 24 hours after we had finished painting the nursery for the second time. My therapist, knowing that I was an artist, encouraged me to use art to help me process everything. We stayed away from any news media about the event; however, I knew that I needed a safe way to put my story out there as soon as I could so that I wouldn't feel like a victim of my circumstances anymore. In October of that year, the PA Governor's Awards for the Arts came to Lancaster, and the city of Lancaster had lots of special opportunities for artists to get involved. I decided to make and enter a piece that visually discussed how I felt about entering motherhood with PTSD into the Untitled Lancaster 10x10 show at Levengoods. I remember I picked up my 10x10" panel after our second court date since the incident. It was definitely difficult to balance being a new mom while working on this piece, but PTSD kept me up a lot of the night when I should have been sleeping anyways, so I wasn't really missing out on anything to get the work completed in time for the show. I have to say, it felt really good, but also very scary, to put myself out there like that, but it definitely needed to be done. I think I'm going to continue to use art as part of my healing process and mental health
I'm currently working on my thesis for my Master's Degree at Millersville University, so most of my "extra" time has been spent dissecting and summarizing my study that I conducted over the course of last school year with my Art III/IV Honors/AP students. Here are some excerpts from my paper: "From my own experience in various art departments and through my peers’ debates during college class discussions, art teachers argue the percentage of time and the validity of student-choice. When students get no choice, students are able to replicate teacher’s work and follow directions, but have no idea how to create art without being told what to do. When students get full-choice, or free reign of the art room, often their technical skills are left under-developed...making a work of art is as much about choosing the idea/concept as it is the artist’s ability and knowledge of the materials used to create it. As an art teacher, I want my students to participate in genuine art making experiences in which they not only learn how use materials, whether it be through direct teacher-led exercises or through their own exploratory play, but also how to create a piece that is meaningful and communicates their ideas effectively. I want to expose them to what it is like to think and act like an artist and to further develop artistic behaviors as they choose to continue to make art." Since I've been investigating TAB (Teaching for Artistic Behavior), I've also recognized the need to become more social and collaborative with my teaching. Last week, I learned how to participate in a Twitter chat with a group of other TAB teachers. Here's some of our conversation from last weekend: https://twitter.com/missjaybar/status/663536152260014080 At any rate, that's what I'm currently interested in within the field of art education. I'm also hoping to use this blog as a place to document my artistic process. Currently, my students are wrapping up on their figure drawing assignments. I'm not a very figurative artist - it's not something that has interested me in past works; however, I've been thinking about the lyrics to a song by Anberlin ("*Fin" - for several years, actually), and I'm becoming interested in working with figures to create a piece that illustrates the images I get in my head from the song. Here is the progress so far: I'm thinking about creating an "altarpiece" of sorts for the patron saint of lost causes. I'm still working through the ideas - the "piece" on the left is my demo piece for school (that's why half of it is uncolored - so my students can see the structure underneath the drawing and the process I used to create it). It's a little more anime and emo than I am, but I'm looking at it as a sketch or springboard for the eventual piece I will create that will probably be more like the sketch on the right that I created on my phone during church today (don't judge me! this is about the patron saint of lost causes...)
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