Rebecca Silberman and Rosalee Kelly

Rebecca Silberman“12 x 12” 2002-2013 (on-going)

Postcard image with one portrait from each year, 2002-2013

On roughly the same day each month for nearly 14 years, I have made a full body portrait of my daughter, Rosalee, on a black backdrop, spanning from newborn to, now, a young woman. The project, which was first exhibited in early 2014, a month after my daughter Rosalee turned 12, consisted of 144 8” x 10” tintype plates. While this started out as something I intended to pursue only during my daughter’s first year of life, it quickly developed into a compulsion of record-keeping, which also includes notebooks full of writing and drawings.

Many people are curious about my daughter’s cooperation in all of this. It was not until she asked a classmate when she was little when their “Portrait Day” was that she had any inkling that other children were not compelled to sit for monthly portraits as a matter of being alive. Both she and my husband are (sometimes reluctant) collaborators. My vision is to create a consistent and authentic record of a single individual’s passage not just from birth through adolescence, but over the course of a life time—for as long as it can be sustained. It is not so important that I make these, only that the project continues, perhaps even by (sometimes reluctant) grandchildren or other collaborators.

Rosalee, 3 months

This project is an archive of tintypes not for its own sake, but because in the now largely forgotten vernacular, bigger tintypes were often copies of smaller tintypes, intended to be framed and placed on view—often of someone who was deceased. So they are a sort of signifier of passing.  When these plates have been exhibited, I have also displayed alongside this personal archive a small sampling of large copy tintypes of babies that I have collected over the years. Many of these include clear indications that they are copies. It is not uncommon to be able to see nails around the periphery, holding the smaller plate in place. Sometimes they have been re-photographed in the original mat, which is evident. Often they are retouched with parts of the image background altered and details painted in. More than likely this made the portrait into more of a small painting to be put on permanent display.

-Rebecca Silberman

Rosalee, 37 months

Rosalee Kelly, On being photographed by her mother every month since she was born

How would I describe this project? My mother has taken a picture on me on or around my un-birthday (the 8^th of each month) since I was born. At almost 14 years old now, we have not missed a single month.

It didn’t seem that it would add up to be something as large as it did. What I mean by this is the fact that I used to go along with it without a thought to what it would turn out to be project wise. When I saw the 12×12 project (exhibited in early 2014, just after I turned 12), it was suddenly something big and important, like a long series of books. I mean these photos documented the years and months and days of my life. The best way to describe them would be a visual diary of my existence. Someday they might not have any context, so they won’t really be an emotional representation of my life, (save the fact I start to smile less as the years progress), but as of now, they show the extent of my physical growth and maturity and with help from my mom, they have some emotional context too.

Rosalee, 105 months

I have been asked before if I wanted to stop this project. I think we are a little bit too far down the rabbit hole for that now. We are way too far into this project to quit now, and eventually the focus of this project will be handed to my daughter from me and the cycle will start all over.  Now that I am older, I have started to help my mom with this monthly process. I help her with the set up and have even learned to do some of the old processes that my mom teaches and loves so much. I have learned to assist making a wet collodion tintype plate. My mom says that my ability to hold still for a long time in front of the camera borders on the supernatural.

Rosalee, 141 months

My favorite images are the probably the most recent ones because I now no longer look at all like a child. I like looking at all the older ones too because sometimes I don’t even remember them being taken, but they were and they are now a part of my life. I have a record of what I looked like at every stage.

-Rosalee Kelly

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This post is part of the (Pro)Create Anthology, a collection of narratives about the intersection of professional studio practice and parenting.

 

 

Edgar Endress

There is an aspect of being a father as a familiar figure, it is natural to the process but peripheral for some.  Simone was born in the same set of circumstances that have dictated our parenting life–in distance. Lori gave birth in Virginia and I was teaching in New Jersey. I made it on time to be part of the birth experience as much as I could be part, to observe and document. Giving birth changed everything for us because  distance was always a factor, 7 hours commute didn’t make it easy. Under those circumstances the European attitude of having the father also on parental leave makes sense. But in fact, Lori didn’t even get paid parental leave. For me my studio is where I am, I work with what I have, so I never felt limited by lack of access to the studio. Lori and I never stopped doing what we planned to do, Simone was three weeks old when we presented our work at a conference in Atlanta and the organizer was rocking Simone while we talked. But what really helped us was a residency in Germany. Lori, Simone, and I were in Germany almost a full year in a castle in Stuttgart. Simone learned to walk there and we traveled together in Europe.  There was always an inclination to make the kids (now two, Ian  was born in 2006) part of our academic, research life. Both of them have been exposed to lectures in migration and anthropology, as we didn’t have babysitters or they were sick and we happened to be in different places. They confess they don’t particularly like that, but they got used it. A year ago, Simone presented my work at an opening  because I was was away doing an lecture. Being part of our family means being part of every aspect of our lives.

-Edgar Endress

Simone and Lori

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This post is part of the (Pro)Create Anthology, a collection of narratives about the intersection of professional studio practice and parenting.

Cameron Schmitz

Since becoming a mother to our daughter, now 11 months old, I was both pleasantly surprised and shocked that I was able to get back into the studio only 3 months after her birth. I wore her in the Ergo baby carrier or in a back pack, and as a result, my work has taken a totally different and exciting shift.

She’s inspired a new use of color and freer way of working, and that has felt incredibly liberating. She’s helped me become a better problem solver, because I don’t have as many long, extended hours staring at a painting in the studio like I once had. When I had her on my back painting, I had to keep leaving the studio to give her new things to look at, and as a result I was able to see my work with fresh perspectives more often because I kept having to put my brushes sown and leave the work, to later come back and see formal problems that I would probably not have recognized as early as I did. Progress happened much faster. My biggest self-criticism in the past was overworking and over-refining my paintings. And all of a sudden, that was no longer occurring. I had a new sense of restraint because I had to be really specific with that I was doing with my time while in the studio.

When wearing her, I had to keep moving and bouncing, which immediately triggered a more active, lyrical approach to painting, and thus, for me, inspired a totally new body of abstract work which I am continuing to invest my time developing. This change has opened up new challengesthat are extremely exciting to me. I have fallen back in love with painting again. I get butterflies about my paintings in progress, which hasn’t happened in years.

Becoming a mother has changed me. I now see the world differently. I have never witnessed change and growth occur so fast as I have as watching my daughter develop each and every day. The birth of my daughter has heightened my senses and desire to express inner joy, wonder, unknowing, and the search for color in my life to mirror the heightened states of enjoyment that I experience from the simplest of moments in life.

As a young student artist I had zero female professors who were also mothers. Whereas 99% of my of my male professors were fathers with families. This was startling and disconcerting. All my life I have struggled with the notion of how I was going to be a practicing artist who also could raise a family and be a really great parent to my children. I admit that I still have those concerns, as my husband and I would one day like to have a second child and I wonder if that second, wondrous being might be “the straw that breaks the camel’s back”, so to speak. I don’t know.

No matter what, I think there needs to be a larger voice for artist professionals who are mothers not only “making it work”, but also being inspired by giving birth and raising a children. Being a mother is truly a gift, and my daughter has most definitely been a gift to my experience as an artist that I am forever grateful for.

-Cameron Schmitz

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This post is part of the (Pro)Create Anthology, a collection of narratives about the intersection of professional studio practice and parenting.

Maria Karametou

Even as a very young child I remember hiding under the long maroon cover of our dining room table to draw. But my father was intent on my becoming something “serious” and “respectable” when I grew up – and to him that meant nothing even remotely close to an artist. Early in high school I secretly apprenticed myself to a master painter paid for by my great conspirator: my grandmother. Later on, I left our country, home and family, and came to America to follow my life’s passion and become an artist. I never had any maternal instincts.   My decision to have a child was directly related to three things: the ticking clock, my husband’s desire to have one, and my cultural background that somehow assumes (at least back then) that there is something wrong with married couples that remain childless. My brother used to say that I “fell into baby land with a parachute”. I knew nothing about children and was never interested in them. I had rarely held a baby in my arms before.   I was preparing for the opening of a solo show, when the director of the gallery saw I was pregnant (I could no longer hide it), and said: “there goes your career”. I was horrified by this callous assumption. Yet I knew that my teacher, a well known artist, had given up a son for adoption, and I remembered how she used to talk about it when we all met in that dark, stinky tavern where the smell of liquor permeated the seats and our clothes. So in defiance to the remarks of the director, I decided to learn the sex of my child on the day of the opening reception, and phoned my gynecologist brother in law to whom I had the test results sent. That’s how I found out that the life kicking inside me was a girl, and I was happy to carry her with me to the reception sporting the only pregnancy outfit I ever bought that boldly showed off my protruding belly.   Strangely enough those nine months were one of the most tranquil periods of my life. I remained unfazed as if encased in a protective bubble even when a huge slide screen fell inches from my head while I was lecturing at the university where I was teaching at the time. Every day I went down to the studio just as I had always done, worked for hours, and the only thing I changed was to stop working with toxic materials like xylone and Rhoplex. Increasingly though, I was isolated from friends and was desperate for the company of family. But my mother had suddenly died back home at age 63, two years before my daughter was born, and I was thousands of miles away from Greece. There was no one around except my husband and he was at work all day.   When Melissa Eleni was born, I was incredulous. I would look at her and wonder about the miracle of creating a life. I felt that no matter what I did, no matter how many visual works I created, no matter how far I went in my chosen path, my small claim to immortality would come through this little creature whose tiny, trusting fingers wrapped around mine. I became painfully aware of her fragility and did everything I could to make sure she was always all right at all times. I grew up with extended family around (aunts, uncles, grandparents and lots of family friends), and here I was, standing between my daughter and my mother, thinking of how the one would never get a chance to meet, love and teach the other, and often comparing the sheltered life my mother led (who never left our country for long), and that which this child, already a part of two different cultures, would have. I stood in the middle, reexamining my cultural identity and at times agonizing about who I really was, where I really belonged, and even how much of my rich heritage I would be able to pass on to my daughter.   Oddly enough, after she was born, instead of feeling exhausted I exploded with creativity and new ideas. I went about realizing them and took her down to the studio from day one even after my husband suggested that I needed to take some time off. I never told her “no” when she wanted to play with my materials. I said: “just touch”; and she learned to lightly put her hand on top of the thing that had excited her curiosity, feel its shape gently, and then let go of it. I raised her by instinct. In a way we raised each other. I led her through childhood and she showed me the road to maturity.   When she was only a couple of years old, Melissa Eleni laid down still enough for me to take a cast of her body, which I then incorporated in the piece pictured here. It is a mixed media relief that includes images from my own childhood and which I feel ties all of the above together.

I am a mixed media artist. I draw from my personal experience and history of migration, mobility and displacement, to create work that relates to the impact of place and time upon identity, memory, and our own personal journey for self-discovery. What interests me is to uncover the poetry of repurposed, commonplace materials and transform them in order to speak about what I know, who I am, what my relationship as a woman is to the world and, ultimately, about the human experience.   Melissa Eleni is now grown and I am still a working artist. Guess that gallery director was wrong.

-Maria Karametou

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This post is part of the (Pro)Create Anthology, a collection of narratives about the intersection of professional studio practice and parenting.

Paula Crawford

Logic and sermons never convince,

The damp of the night drives deeper into my soul

-Walt Whitman (Leaves of Grass, Song of Myself [30], 1^st ed)

Having a child forced me to grow up…to become an adult. It was a path lighted by doubt.

When I was first pregnant, living in Brooklyn, I could sense a change in the many subtle public and private exchanges with friends and strangers alike. There is a self-exile in the discovery that you are pregnant—all your friends are still in bars, seeing themselves as the center and source of meaning. You are quietly setting yourself apart, adjusting to a new center—a sacrifice to something unknown and unfolding. There is both alienation and a new kind of anchoring.

What does it mean to be an artist and then suddenly a mother and artist? I’m talking about a woman’s experience here—as we literally embody it. We are seen, differently—sometimes radically so–her life is over, she had so much potential, but she’s no longer one of us, no longer committed. A woman is catapulted into a new set of public expectations and assumptions. She will have to prove that she is really an artist. Will she leave the scene for play dates and housewifery?

Of course, there are great models we look to—Elizabeth Murray, who lived downtown with her kids. In her obit, Roberta Smith writes, “The birth of her son, Dakota, in 1969, also firmed her ambitions. She proceeded to dismantle and rebuild her art, replacing acrylic paint with oil paint — which she called “another kind of life form.”[1] There is Mary Kelly who transformed the birth of her child into a Freudian art project. Or Ida Applebroog who “in 1969, living in San Diego and raising four children… retreated every night to the bathtub for a hot soak in peace. She brought her sketchbooks with her and proceeded to create a series of 150 delicate pen-and-ink renderings of her vagina. (She prefers the term, though technically the subject is her vulva.) A year earlier, she had been hospitalized for depression, and she now considers her “Vagina Drawings” to be the map of her recovery, the reconnection to her self and to her artistic life.”[2]

Do we even know which male artists have kids? Has it had any effect on their careers? Will we ever move from motherhood to parenthood, a symmetrical model of two parents in equal commitment? This is the hopeful work to be done by the current generation.

To bear and have a child is to see differently, as when something serious happens in the world, a life-threatening illness or a war. But this is an astonishingly beautiful kind of seriousness. It is the center of meaning, the continuation of the species, biological destiny. The art world can feel counterfeit in comparison, somewhere between Dante’s eighth-circle-flatterers and Vampire of the Vanities. Or high school! Privileged people from good private schools spreading official avant-garde culture to the rich and bored. Small, cold glasses of white wine among earnest works claiming political impact or clever ones that refer to themselves or like works.  This stands in relief to the churning reality of one’s animal body and the continuity of time that suddenly stretches behind and before you in blood lines and threads of DNA.

You feel your feet press into the earth, attuned to your ancestral line, re-rhythmed to a double heartbeat, yourself awash in body fluids and doubt.

I got pregnant in the late 1980s. I remember announcing my pregnancy to my Marxist-feminist male mentor who looked at me as if I were an alien—both betrayal and fear in his eyes. I must admit that it stung. As I tried to make sense of his response, I came to the conclusion that he was seeing a woman’s body—my body–as a realm of the unknown, uncharted, dark, mysterious. In a word, he was horrified. My body had become flesh. It was inconvenient. Was it possible that my Marxist-feminist mentor was othering me? Was it possible that an enlightened contemporary thinker could possibly still see a woman’s body as a dark mysterious island—how totally ancient! How dark ages! The subtle but implicit message was, “You are no longer one of us. You have essentialized your identity as a woman. As a body.” Of course, among the many ironies here is that he had essentialized himself.

It became clear that there were really only two roads to art world survival: to either wholly ignore one’s pregnancy, body, and subsequent child– to not skip a beat; or to structure this into some kind of theoretical employment, subservient to masculine standards of cultural value (e.g., Mary Kelly).

What is striking is that neither of these choices is on the pregnant woman’s terms, but rather a strategy for seamlessly fitting into a structure that is already set and is inherently masculine. My hope is that millennial artists—this generation—will have comfortably replaced motherhood with parenthood and, in so doing, create a new model where artists rather than women-artists have kids.

For my part, I chose the first path–to ignore and separate.  I did an international installation in the ninth month of pregnancy (note from doctor with permission to fly) and subsequent public piece with baby in snuggly. I lived in my Brooklyn studio and set the alarm for 3 am to get a solid four hours of painting in before the baby woke—a routine possibly as taxing as cross-fit! There was a sense of the fight—a resistance to overcome. I became much more organized and efficient in my work habits. In art school, we were in the studio sixteen hours a day. But much of it was drinking and smoking and talking about the meaning of life. I can honestly say that during these days, I could do in four hours what might have taken twelve to sixteen in less disciplined times.

Still, a kind of meaning gap persisted. At times, the studio work seemed to reside on the surface of things as compared to the deep-rooted truth of creating, bearing, sheltering what seemed existence itself. This rich area might be explored by a young artist. It’s interesting that love and death have always been staples of art and literature. And yet birth—love’s material evidence–that stands in such profound symmetry with death, has remained hidden and undeclared. I suspect this is because it has always been the realm of women, in the silent margins. I’m hopeful that this generation will live it differently.

-Paula Crawford

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[1] New York Times, Roberta Smith, August 13, 2007, Elizabeth Murray, 66, Artist of Vivid Forms, Dies

[2] Art in America, Jaye Hirsch, June 1, 2012, Ida Applebroog

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This post is part of the (Pro)Create Anthology, a collection of narratives about the intersection of professional studio practice and parenting.

Margaret Hancock

As a curator, I thought my pregnancy with my second child would be a non-factor in my work and was surprised by the impact it had, especially on my relationship with exhibiting artists. The curator/artist interrelations can be quite formal, by nature, as they are centered around the strategic elements of selection, pricing, and scheduling.  The presence of a pregnant belly, however, seemed to instantaneously create a more informal atmosphere.  In the months of my pregnancy, I curated multiple exhibitions and found repeatedly that my baby bump somehow allowed, or even encouraged, the artists I worked with to be more candid and personal.  During studio visits we conversed about the artist’s own pregnancies, children, parenthood, and of course, their art.  These impromptu discussions not only affected our working relationships but infused all aspects of the shows, from the supplementary gallery text I created to the artists’ talks during the opening receptions.  Now that my son has arrived, he and his big sister are often in tow for studio visits and gallery installs as I never know what wonderful, insightful tête-à-têtes their presence may instigate.

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This post is part of the (Pro)Create Anthology, a collection of narratives about the intersection of professional studio practice and parenting.

Mandy Cooper

I couldn’t have anticipated the lack of brain function motherhood would bring. Somehow not only is my physical body temporarily “Her’s”, but so is my brain. From the hours of 7am- 8-9pm everyday I don’t feel I can fully access those parts of my thinking involved in the creative process. They are highjacked, and all that remains is what I need to keep this little human alive and entertained. Serious studio time for me has evolved into a few all-nighters each week. This probably isn’t the healthiest practice, but for now- it’s my reality. For some reason after she has fallen to sleep, and my husband and I are headed to bed- all brain functioning seems to suddenly return and I urgently need to play out all the ideas swirling around. It’s the only time I know I will not be needed, and therefor feel totally free and mentally sharp. Although staying up all night after taking care of a baby all day doesn’t seem pleasant, they are incredibly fulfilling hours and seem to give me the distance I need as an individual and an artist.  My artistic practice (though hard to schedule) has helped me to maintain the separation and individuality I need as a mother and woman.  And having a daughter has given me insight into how very much I need to make art and produce work to feel myself.

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This post is part of the (Pro)Create Anthology, a collection of narratives about the intersection of professional studio practice and parenting.

Elsabé Johnson Dixon

I have always been fascinated with biology, so my first pregnancy captured my attention completely. Every sonogram picture was analyzed in great detail for its amazing surface textures and grain. I would also revel in small experiments during pregnant early morning showers when I could put my fingers on two places of my body and feel two different heartbeats. When Cobb was born in 1985 I loved to watch him; everything about him was so strange… he was so human. He made strange faces and his emotions were tied to his basic needs. I remember making drawings of him obsessively and these later turned into many etching plates. I had a great Canon camera that I used to photograph him as he laughed, cried, smiled, threw temper tantrums. I noticed work that other artists like Alice Neel made of infants… she too seemed to see the strange blotchy skin color and contortions…the neediness.  The vulnerability.

My daughter was due in December 1987 but Ina came early November after I climbed some apple trees in our post World War II suburban backyard, in a quest to learn the fine art of “Apfelkuchen”. We were living in Bochum, Germany, with a Richard Serra Sculpture in the town center where drunks would piss on the Core10 steel and cover it in graffiti every night. As out of place as that sculpture was, I seemed to be in place. Ina was a great baby and we would travel over weekends to Amsterdam, Paris and Berlin. In Paris we meandered through the Louvre; the National Museum of Modern Art at the Centre Pompedou; the Musee d’Orsay; Rodin’s Garden and the Musee Jacquemart-Andre. In Amsterdam we went to the Rijksmuseum, the van Gogh Museum, the Anne Frank house and the Stedelijk Museum as well as Rembrand van Rijn house – I was intrigued by his etchings at the time. In Berlin we went to the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum fur Gegenwart, the Neue National Galerie, Kathe Kollwitz Museum and the Kunstgewerbemuseum. For me it was a crash course in art history.

I did not make as many sketches of Ina as I had of Cobb but I remember writing long descriptive letters – in dramatic capitals only – to my printing professor, Robert Marsh, at Averett in Virginia. He commented that these letters looked like weavings and that he was not sure whether he was supposed to “read” them or just “view” them. I remember seeing Andreas Gursky’s first architectural photographs of communal spaces when we first flew into the Dusseldorf airport in 1987. We saw a lot of art while traipsing around with two little ones in tow. Breastfeeding made traveling easy – there were no bottles to pack. I also remember friends coming over and staying until the wee hours of the morning talking about all kinds of interesting things. These were my “salon” years…digesting vast quantities of art and being surrounded by interesting people.

Tom was born in 1997 and it was right after his birth that I received my first grant  – the Margaret Conent grant – to do artwork with insects. This work was directly linked to his birth. While I was pregnant, six months before he was born, my cousin came to visit me from South Africa. We were having conversations about our childhood experiences and I was extremely homesick for Africa at the time. I complained that there were experiences I could not share from my childhood with my children… because I was in America. As an example I mentioned my cousin and my shared experience of raising silkworms as children; a tradition passed down in our French family who first came to Africa in the 17^th century intent on starting silk industries. A week after my cousin returned to South Africa, a small packet of silk seeds (silk moth eggs) arrived in the mail for me with a short note: “Stop complaining”, it read. Tom has never experienced a summer without the smell of freshly cut mulberry leaves and yes…silkworms. He seems not to mind and spent last summer actively participating in a live installation with 6000 silkies.

I have always had a “devil may care” attitude when it came to mixing “having children” and my work or studio practice. I did not participate in family planning and I did not plan how I would work, or not work, when I had my children. I did not carve out time for myself but, instead, I learned to grab opportunities in small segments of time when it came my way. When I could not participate in specific studio practices I looked at art and studied art. Sometimes input is as important as output. You can “make” stuff but if there is no intellectual engagement in one’s studio practice it seems like a quiet, impotent ritual – vacant and strangely disconnected from the world. My children often became part of the creative process – standing patiently while I made body casts or life drawings of them. I found that the mundane tasks of changing diapers, feeding and bathing and playing with children often gave me great moments of inspiration and clarity.

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This post is part of the (Pro)Create Anthology, a collection of narratives about the intersection of professional studio practice and parenting.

Nikki Brugnoli

Before having Finnegan I took my time and space for granted. I wasn’t structured the way I needed to be, I was very focused on MANY things. Art, a bit (a lot) on the periphery. Becoming a mother in 2011 changed completely the way I considered what it was to be a maker, my practice, my understanding of time, as well as the need to very carefully and thoughtfully plan a working space within the boundaries of my home. My question of “sustainability” rose rapidly to the foreground, blurring most other, external concerns.

The first 2 years of Finnegan’s life were absolutely insane. Not only did I have a new life that was entirely dependent on me, but also I was renovating a house and adjuncting at 3 schools in Northern Virginia, all the while negotiating practical concerns like health insurance. My studio schedule consisted of naptimes, and bedtime and really only a very small amount of time all together. I surrendered to the need to focus on learning my child’s needs, as well as my own as a new parent. Art making became more of a conceptual incubation period – this lasted until Finnegan turned 2 and I was able to establish my home studio that was separate from our living space. I made very small, but important series of works and writings during those first two years.

I understood that my practice and sustainability required an intimate distance from my family. My studio moved to the basement, and I worked at night after my family fell asleep. 4-5 nights a week provided a thoughtful and nurturing space for exploring my new understanding of what it is to be a maker. Giving birth changed this ideology completely.

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This post is part of the (Pro)Create Anthology, a collection of narratives about the intersection of professional studio practice and parenting.