Motherhood as Art

I was recently asked by another artist "What have you been working on lately?" At first I thought: nothing. I am too busy with my kids, don't have time for art making, don't have time for myself, don't have time to think, don't have time to concentrate, keep a thought, finish a sentence, think clearly. Have to focus on lunch boxes, and teething, and soccer try-outs and many other things, that aren't me or my art.
But that's not right, because my kids are me. They are my life and that space between me and their lives only half exists, it's impossible for me to be a single parent of two and carve a separate space for a life that's solely mine. We are all, the three of us, in it together in a very real and physical way.
But I remembered: I am working on a fort. And as I began talking about it I realized, this is totally the biggest, size wise, piece of art I have ever made.

It is constructed from found materials: wood, metal, glass, acrylic paint, plastic toys, mirrors and cement. I made it with my bare hands, dreamed it up, inspired, just because I wanted it to exist. I didn't use a plan, I didn't follow directions, I was even kind of obsessive and feverishly devoted to it. My friends and family could tell you I was kind of annoying, always talking about it.
"Where is it?" He asked, and I told him "my backyard".
"So it's just this giant thing sitting in you backyard?" His eyes sparkled with curiosity now. imagining a bizarre structure mystifying the neighbors
"Well it's a play fort, so that's a good place for it."
"Oh, it's for your kids." He looked disappointed, and his interest faded.
 "No I meant like what kind of art you're working on, like installation stuff?"
So, some giant strange building sitting in my backyard is interesting, but if children are allowed to play in it, it's not art. Okay.

And this brings me to what I have been mulling over lately.

Small acts throughout the day, when I combine brown sugar, cream and wheat,. place it in a vine embellished bowl, and decorate with fresh blackberries from my Dad's yard. That feels like art-making to me. I concentrate and create in the same way. But because a one year old eats it, it isn't art?
Or scavenging abandoned rose bushes,  designing my flower beds, pruning,  weeding. I am physically designing and making and shaping beauty. I am bringing things into existence, that weren't here before, for the sheer love of beauty.
My life with these two children, making their home, feeding them well, hearing their stories, telling them mine, the love and the creation of our history together, to me, it is one giant creative act.
But according to some it isn't.

And this is what really chafes my hide:

The only difference is really: product. There's nothing to sell. The idea of what we will call art, is all tied up in capitalism. If it can't be made into a product and sold away, it isn't art. It is something else, it is home-making, it is craft, it is some other womanly thing that doesn't qualify in the high brow universe that determines value.
If I was a conspiracy theorist I would say our connection to art, like music, like God, we are told is outside of us. It is in a place that needs to be travelled to and bought. That we need to be instructed in it, that others are experts.

That we aren't it, and it isn't us. 

I have decided, for me art isn't that thing they say it is, that inaccessible bunch of complicated stuff that is expensive, and half of us can't relate to. Tidy things in boxes and galleries, compartmentalized things, commodified and cold.
It is something much closer to God. And by God I mean my own definition of God: that beautiful mysterious thing that exists between and around all of us, that shared love and magic, that awe-inspiring breath taking wonder that amazes and humbles me.

Art is everywhere, anything I do, that I do not for time-saving, not for a 'good' reason, not for a pragmatic and sensible reason, there is art there.  Taking time to  plant sunflowers  in wiggly  wandering rows with my 7 year old. making the bed and placing the pillows just so, decorating a toddlers room,  building beautiful african peanut soup and garnishing with a flutter of cilantro before we sit down to dinner, and building a sky blue play-fort  out of scavenged wood.  My life is a creative act. 

My life is art.

Lord 'Help' Me

I know if I go to any number of websites I can find a myriad of dissections of the "new" movie 'The Help', both pro and con. Of course any film dealing with race is going to have adoration and detraction. To be honest,  I don't even know very much about it, just the commercials I've seen on the television, while I'm trying to watch Law and Order ( I am the world biggest nerd-fan of Law and Order.)
Butthe little that I do know about this movie, just makes me want to barf.

Barf, barf, and barf.

Why do we need more depictions of black women as maids? Seriously,  there are so many stories of black people in the United States that are just dying to be told. Artists, architects, educators, scientists, mothers, bankers,  probably even bank robbers. So many. These are the stories I want to hear. How about a movie about the life of Betye Saar? Seriously, there's a story that needs telling.

The Liberation of Aunt Jemima, by Betye Saar. 1972

I am sure studio heads figure a white audience is a lot more comfortable watching a movie about 'the help" in past tense. They can pat themselves on the back and say,  "I'm so glad we're all done with that" and "Man, I don't treat black people that way, I feel so good about myself." 
But if Hollywood is all of a sudden ready to invest in movies about the lives of domestic servants, there are films that are relevant and fascinating that I'd really like to see.  Here's an idea: a movie about present tense filipino nannies, working insanely long hours and raising peoples kids, and cleaning their houses. What about their inner thoughts regarding the people they work for. What about their children and the families they support with their paychecks, back in the Philippines? A movie like that doesn't allow a contemporary audience the same back patting though. We're a lot more likely, regardless of race, to be connected somehow, maybe even complicit.
If we look at contemporary domestic workers the color palette would be much more complex now. Black, Mexican and White families have maids these days. Many people of color are still living with a legacy of slavery and poverty, and are still overrepresented in this labor that is looked at as somehow less than worthy of respect, so it's not as if race and class aren't intertwined here. But things would be much more messy now if we were to divide the good guys and the bad guys by race. Really it's about being able to see people, or a group of people as an other, as somewhat less than human.
When we were discussing moving to Asia my (now very EX) husband was very excited that we would be able to afford a maid there. He was so happy to inform me "Just about every family there has a Filipino house keeper who is also their Nanny!" Saying this as if he were telling me " Every yard has a mango tree and the streets are paved with gold". Needless to say we were not on the same page. That  way of thinking about people in terms of what you can get away with leads to situations like this, which is an article, or more of a rant, written about the island where we later moved to, Saipan.

I have worked as a maid and it's so f-ing weird. 

You are intensely intimately close with these people, this family, you learn about their family dynamics, their habits, their fights, their worries, their habits, their passions, and their general grossness. But you are not their friend or even an acquaintance. It's such a bizarre dynamic. I could not ever, no never ever, stand the idea of having someone be that personally intimate with me and my family, unless they were someone that I loved and was close with. I wouldn't ever, and can't imagine inviting someone into my home if I didn't trust and respect them as a human being. And when you trust and respect someone as a human being it's difficult to ask them to clean your toilet two or three times a week. I'm not saying it's impossible to have a mutually  respectful relationship with the person who cleans your house. But it is a relationship that is ripe with weirdness and an odd imbalance  and I think most of the time people just don't give it much thought.
And how, if you must de-humanize someone in order to deal with the idea of them cleaning your house ( and many people do, because you can not think of them as a stranger in your home, you must think of them as a worker, whatever that is in your head) can you expect them not to de-hamanize you in some way too?
If the dynamic is one where a stranger is cleaning your toilet, how do you think most people feel cleaning someone else's toilet? I know many, many good and decent people who are house-cleaners, and nannies, and they are incredibly kind and generous people who would never, ever even disrespect their employer in any way. Yet, not everyone is a pillar of goodness. Not me, that's for sure. I couldn't help resenting the people I cleaned up after, even though they were perfectly fine people, if not a little gross. When it comes right down to it, do you want that power dynamic in your own home?
Jan Wong wrote an incredible series of articles over at The Globe &Mail about going undercover as a maid. She is brilliant and I fell in love with her writing when I read these.
And another thing...why does there always have to be some white savior in these movies? Why do we need  a white person as the central character to bring these stories forward? These days I think white people will go watch a movie with a central character that isn't a white lady. I think they can handle it. Also, I am pretty sure people of color go to the movies too.
At best, "The Help" might inspire larger conversations into the rights of domestic laborers  in contemporary North American culture, but to me it just seems like another attempt to drag out another tired horse that needs to be put out to pasture.

Cheap and cheerful vintage Golden Books wall art. Lovely!

So, the other day I found, in a free pile, an old Golden Book, you know, the little kids books with the golden spines. The book was decimated, and the cover was half hanging off. But I couldn't let this sweet piece of cover art end up in the trash.So I dragged it home. ( I am so scared I am going to end up on Hoarders: Buried Alive)
Anyhoo it sat around for a few days til I was messing around with stuff on my son's walls and it occurred to me that it would look great in a frame. And it does.
You can frame the entire book, just pop the whole thing behind  glass. Then you wouldn't be destroying literature, which seems inherently wrong to me.
Golden Books are kicking around in nearly every thrift store I've ever been in. And they're bound to be less than a really nominal amount of change. Some of the older covers have wicked cool art on them. But as they are from a different era there can be some challenging stuff that is totally whcked out politically incorrect. Framing the covers is a great way to bring vintage kids art into your kids bedroom without  incorporating those pesky outdated gender and race stereotypes into their fragile little psyches.
Here's one of my favorite covers, see how awesome they are?

Golden Books are a really neat kind of phenomenon, they are somewhat universally familiar, and can evoke kid feelings in lots of us. They are attached to buried memories and feelings. And if you want to see something truly amazing here's a link to an artist Ryan Novelline who created a fairytale dress entirely out of discarded Golden Books. Magnifique!

Recipe: The Worlds Most Intensely Amazing Banana Bread

Wait until your 7 year old son has just returned home from a family reunion with his fathers family. Make sure you have missed him. When he returns he must describe your life together as tedious and boring and no fun; despite all of the summer camps, trips to the swimming pool, trips to the water park, all of which took all of the energy and concentration you could muster.
Arranging a trip to the water park for a toddler and a seven year old really is a feat, keeping the toddler from falling down face first in the water or falling off the little bridges over the streams, while making sure the seven year old doesn't fall of the giant swing and says sorry when he scares a timid preschooler, remember snacks, and sunscreen, and water bottles, and towels, and a blanket to sit on. I know, it's tedious reading this, it's tedious having to type it. But while you're day dreamy type keeping your brain trained on these tasks really is a feat. But I digress, back to 'his life is boring'.
At this point, it tell yourself, that seven year olds live in the moment, and can't be expected to comprehend or be sensitive to the work you put into making sure he has fun and is happy. Stifle your hurt feelings, they are valid, but holding onto them will only make you miserable.
While your hungry one year old baby mills around your feet, and you are making pizza as a welcome home treat for the "neglected and miserable" seven year old, decide to make the banana bread. Preheat the oven to 350.
This will be a fun thing you can do together with the aformentioned neglected child that you will enjoy doing together.
I promise, there's a recipe in here, but you won't be able to enjoy the banana bread if you aren't entirely emotionally present, you must bring yourself to a place of ultimate receptivity, like bringing milk almost to the boil, or heating butter so sugar will melt right into it.
Give the seven year old five bananas, a fork and a mixing bowl. Tell him to peel and smush the bananas in the bowl. Admire his way of delicately picking the strings of the peel off of the bananas. Think how amazing it is that he is such a complex person, so into basketball and mud and Captain underpants stories, but careful, and overjoyed to find a bouquet of fake flowers at a thrift store. Fall head over heels in love while watching him, think your heart might explode.
Give him two eggs to add to the bananas. One must roll off of the counter onto the floor. Scramble to get the egg off the floor before the baby gets into it.
Put the pizza into the oven. Feel bad for the baby, who remains hungry and is kvetching now. Give him a handful of blueberries from the fridge on a little dish so he can watch you and his big brother make banana bread and have a snack. Think he is adorable sitting feet crossed on the floor taking each individual blueberry, concentrating singularly on each one, watching his big brother with such a look of wonder, like he is the worlds biggest super-hero ever. EVER.
Put the timer on for the pizza. You have forgotten way to many pizzas in the oven when distracted by a weed in the garden that needs pulling, or a messy living room that needs tidying, or the ever enticing Facebook.
Ask the seven year old to get the bag of flour from the cupboard and the measuring cup from the baking drawer. Once the scooping of flour is first attempted, become aware that a much larger process than first anticipated is involved at this stage. The markers on the cup must be inspected and discussed, the flour must be measured and remeasured. Think it is neat how day to day experiences make such great learning tools. Wish whole heartedly, like princesses wish for princes, that you could afford to send him to Montessori, where he could learn at his own pace, in a way that makes sense. Put that thought out of your head, it doesn't serve to focus on it, but you won't be able to get it out of your heart.
Throw a teaspoon full of baking soda in the bowl nonchalantly, if the flour process is any indicator, inserting a teaspoon in a small box and extricating a small amount of fine white powder might take three years. Also, while you're at it, scoop out some olive oil margarine, around three quarters of a cup.
The recipe from the internet calls for a cup of brown sugar, but skip this so the kids can eat it for breakfast without becoming giant diabetic monsters later in life.
Instruct seven year old to mush this all around. After half-heartedly stabbing a fork around in the mush he will claim he is too tired. Wonder about his lack of dedication and follow-through. Worry that this will impact him later in life. Wonder if you are instilling a good work ethic. Disregard neurotic thoughts and stir batter because it is boring,, and he doesn't feel like it. And who really cares anyway.
The timer will beep now, so take the pizza out of the oven. Let it cool down on the counter for a while. What do a toddler and a seven year old need with boiling hot cheese?
Once the batter is well mixed, add some fruit. The fresh fruit should be just gently-barely mixed in so it doesn't get bashed to pieces. Ask the seven year old what fruit should be added to this glorious mix. Raisins, currants, blueberries?
In our case, the seven year old chose mangos and blueberries. Follow the lead of your seven year old. Because children feel good about themselves when their opinion is listened to.
Add about two cups of fruit. I added two handfuls of fresh blueberries and the flesh of one mango.
Put the mixture in a bunt pan. Because bunt pans are symbolic of suburbia, and good motherhood and good house-keeping, and wholesomeness, and you want to feel like somehow you are part of that world.
Remember that you need a pizza knife. add it to the list of things in your head that you need, even though you can't afford anything. But know that somehow everything always works out, but that at the moment you really have no idea how it ever could.
Set the timer on the over for 55 minutes. It's a long time, but banana breads take a long time. That's just how it is.
Eat the pizza with your children. Talk about your days. When the baby has finished eating, vacuum him with the vacuum cleaner which has now found a permanent home in the dining room. Just the vacuum hose part, not the big head part, don't traumatize the kid! Watch him giggle as you vacuum his hair and fingers. Watch chunks of dough and salami go flying up the tube. Marvel at the ridiculous cost of food, and that it seems half of your income gets immediately donated to the grocery store as soon as you get it.
Begin the seemingly mythically endless daily process that is: bedtime. Complete bubble baths and  hair washings and pajama wranglings and cover the baby's window with a black out curtain. He must be convinced that the day has ended and night has descended and no options exist now but sleep. Wonder at is beautiful little hands, that he explores the world with these tiny hands, so meticulous and curious. Feel honored to be near him.
At this time you must devise a plan to spend time with the seven year old who has been away at a family vacation, and who you have missed and who you want to sit down in the quiet of the evening with and just hang out. Figure on eating the banana bread with him at this time. The fruits of your intertwined labors. When toddler baby is sleeping adorably go downstairs to share this big idea of togetherness with seven year old.
But, to your surprise you will find, that life strangely takes turns when you have laid out paths in your head. Seven year old will meet you with odd emotional fits and tearful almost tantrum, where the TV remote will be half-flung at the cabinet and you will be left to stand somewhat stunned and genuinely fed up. Remember now, he is emotional, he misses his grandparents and cousins, and too young to know how to express himself in a way that isn't totally stupid. Decide at this moment that children should be indulged to act childish sometimes.Take him upstairs to cuddle before bed.
First the buzzer on the oven will tell you that the banana bread is done. Turn off the oven and leave it in there. Deal with it later.
At this time realize that this trip has allowed him some time apart from you, and that without being able to really articulate how or why, that somehow it has helped him kind of thrust forward into a new stage of separation and independence. That he is awkwardly telling you this with his flailing about and complaints. Know this, but don't know how you know it. Remind ourself that you have to allow him to separate, it's natural, but it hurts. Remind yourself to give him space to grow when he needs to.
After you have tucked him in and kissed his infuriating face, go downstairs to the quiet of you house, wash the dishes, half-heartedly clean up the kitchen. Wash the tray from the baby's high-chair. Take the banana bread out of the oven.
Take a piece out and eat it in the kitchen standing up and leaning against the counter. The fresh fruit will burst in little chunks of glory, the bread will be sweet and warm. It will be intense and amazing, you will love it.
Lift it out of the bunt pan and place it on a pretty plate. The next morning the baby will wake up at some ridiculous hour and after changing a diaper and wandering somewhat tiredly down stairs , you will share some for breakfast, and it will be awesome then too.

Letter to a friend: On becoming a Mom

• Hey You,
  I was thinking about the whole 'becoming a new person when you become a Mom thing'. I thought of a new analogy that seems less terrifying than the idea of your personality being sucked into motherhood (which sounds kiind of like scary science fiction monster business to me) , like it was sounding yesterday when we were talking in group.
  An analogy that seemed more closer to actuality was , 'it's like getting new shoes'. At first it can be painful, and you can look a little ridiculous, and feel self-concious, when you're trying to get used to walking in them, but eventually they form to you.
  Which is what you have to do with motherhood as well. You have to figure out how to be a Mom , and be yourself too. And it takes some time. But like the new shoes, eventually it will be the most comfortable thing in the world.
  In the mean time there's blisters The balm that takes the sting out really is talking to other Moms. And being honest. In a safe place , where we have agreed to help each other rather than judge each other. You will find that the deepest darkest things that you are scared to admit, are all totally fine, and releasing that fear and discontent can make it evaporate, in a way. 
  Honestly parenthood is hard, it doesn't make you happy. Like a general overall happiness. It makes you tired, confused and exasperated  a lot of the time. 
  But it does offer a totally transendant bliss when you see first smiles and first steps and you get to have those first amazing conversations with someone who is full of wonder and love and curiosity.It doesn't make you happy but it's still totally way more than worth it. 
  Being a Mom to an infant comes on all of a sudden. Being a Mom to a 7 year old and a ten year old. Those are hugely different as well, but you have time and experience under you belt and you can ease into it. You have time with your kid to grow together, and your relationship is established. A baby is like a bomb being dropped on you from out of the sky, you have to scramble to become that person, that Mom person.
  And you learn about yourself, and just how deep the depths of your soul are, just how far you will go for another person, just how much you can love without your heart bursting out of your chest. It is amazing to find out just how much you can love someone, and see the world as a parent, a protector, a designer of a young life. Being comforting, supportive, planning fun trips, making neat projects, baking together, playing soccer together, READING  together (Oh my god, the best thing in the world). These experiences will challenge and enrich and strengthen you, and you will find out how powerful this universe sized love is, For me, never having known that feeling, that would be tragic and life would seem so boring.
  Just give it time, eventually it will fit with you, you already are a Mom, and a total natural. And you are a funny person, a loving person and a smart person. What better could you offer a little person? You being you is all she needs.
  Also, when you see those stroller Moms strolling placidly down the avenue, they seem like they are totally satisfied with strolling and burping, chatting at Starbucks and looking at receiving blankets, but they are people too. Complicated , complex and passionate, Mom culture can be deceiving, they probably go home and do all kinds of fascinating things, and think all kinds of complicated thoughts, just like you and me.
  We (me too) have a terrible way of looking at other people and assuming they are doing so well, and are so happy, and their lives are perfect. It always looks like that from the outside, but we're all in it in the same way. I promise.
  There is a balance for you. I can say with certainty, you need to go do fun stuff . Take her to see weird foreign films that only you would enjoy. Go walking along the beach like the other stroller Moms if thats what you like. Or go wandering around malls, or visit the little shops  downtown , or go buy fruit in chinatown or sit around beatnik cafes hitting on men, or wander around a hardware store. Or whatever YOU like. You. Because you're awesome, and there's no greater gift you can give her than yourself.
  I enjoy hardware stores and thrift stores, and art supplies. That's me. You I am sure have different oddities. Go explore them with an Ergo attached to you, or however you do it.
  And take care of yourself.

Tuning In To Your Own Radio Station

I notice as Moms we tend to overextend ourselves, by giving to others and depleting our own internal resources we begin to sort of operate at half capacity. We simply perform tasks, and our internal reserves are so low that we can't muster the  chutspa to attack our day artfully.
A good way to figure out how psychically extended you are as a Mom is to close your eyes in a quiet place. Take stock of all of the things you are keeping track of. It's amazing. Probably, how each of your kids is doing, how they're doing emotionally these days, how much vegetables they've eaten lately, how clean they are behind their ears or how nice their current boyfriend/girlfriend is. If you are in a relationship you are probably aware of how your partner is doing, what their wants and needs are these days. You probably know how soon you will need to go grocery shopping and how many eggs are in your fridge.
You're probably starting to see how many tentacles of thought and care run from us and out into the world. We are aware of so many conditions outside of ourselves we are tuned in to a hundred channels at once.
But if you imagine yourself as a being with a hundred tentacles outstretched, what is at the heart of that being? What is in the middle? I have been feeling lately like in the middle of me there is a hole. A hollow core. I am so tuned into all of these stations I have stopped listening to my own.
So I closed my eyes and tried to tune in. What was playing? Songs about creative projects, phone calls I wanted to make to old friends, books I wanted to read, that I wanted to draw in my sketchbook with my older boy more.
Afterwards I felt so grounded and energized, and even way happier. I felt totally able to handle the things I have to do.
It's kind of awkward at first, call it meditation or whatever you like. But I totally recommend trying it, and then following your path, the funny little things you have a hankering to do.

When life is magic.

I was driving out to the paint exchange, which is located at the local landfill and it struck me just how amazing the simple things in life can be, and how happy they can make me.
The radio was on, and there was french folk music playing and it was pretty, and I didn't know what they were singing about, so I could contemplate life. And my little guy was asleep in the back, his little face turned to the side, absolutely adrift away from the world, engulfed in the sea of sleep, sunlight filtered through the dusty car window lighting up his blonde hair.
The road out to the landfill is through farmland and lots of trees on the sides of the road. It was a gorgeous day, and I was excited about what kind of paint I might find, and what kinds of projects my bounty might inspire.
It's crazy how much time we spend trying to be happy, committing to things that we think will make us happy: planning parties and events that supposedly are 'the happy times', but just driving to the dump with my baby sleeping in the car was one of the sweetest moments I've had in a while. Logic tells me that if these kinds of moments, simple ones, where I am fostering my creativity and rooting around for discarded items, if these things (among others obviously) make me happy I should structure my life around these things.
But we get ensnared in different structures don't we? And we can't blame society, or other people's expectations, because we build these awkward ill-fitting structures ourselves.
It struck me just how magnificent life felt at that moment, so I turned on my camera and made a move of the road, with the music playing. Enjoy.