Autumn of opportunities and dreams…
Installation by 3 year old
Motherhood in all its glory at times seems all consuming, if one lets it. But there is a human behind it all wishing to live its wildest dreams.
At least for an artist mother (me) who has been counting down the days until my kids return to school, so I can have a more predictable schedule that will enable me to continue with my art practice in a way that I can plan things and actually get them to become a reality.
The opportunities I am looking forward to are two fold, first to create a few artworks for special exhibitions opportunities and also to continue to organize my art digitally and actively seek funding through grants and prizes. I also look forward to have regular time to create content for Patreon. I am so excited and looking forward to dive into the offerings I have set up, both about my own practice and my process, and quite a lot as well to be create a series about female artists from the past all the way up to the present. The more I learn about them, all those trailblazers and those bold women, the more I want to learn. The more encouraged I get to continue inspite of all the obstacles in my own life as a foreigner without a family and a big community around me to hold me in the challenging days of motherhood.
I often wonder what I would have accomplished if I had more time, more energy and more resources to dedicate to my art practice. This doesn’t last long, usually a few minutes, and reality calls me back to life, either an appointment that must be fulfilled, a child to be collected from school or an activity, tending to physical and emotional needs of my children. It is a demanding and hectic life, I cherish being a mother, the love and unwavering support my children shower me with. But the majority of the time it is all too much. There is too much technology to fight / negotiate with little children. There is too little time to make art, to attend openings at art galleries, to network with fellow artists by visiting their studios or organizing meet ups.
Anxiety and depression have been my constant companion over the past two decades of my life, for most of it untreated, and now finally with awareness, treatment and active willingness to be more self-compassionate and loving myself hard even when I am not perfect. My art practice gives me so much joy and in it I find myself fulfilling my deepest desires of voicing my needs and my regularly questioning the way women are perceived and the roles they play, in a way that I have never dared to allow myself to do. I was raised religious, a girl, and an obedient child to my parents, there was a lot of conditioning and limiting beliefs, that have yet to be undone.
I am gentle in this process, understanding where my parents came from when it came to my upbringing, evaluating the context of the societies I have been growing up in, but I am no longer willing to continue with things that no longer serve me, and particularly with those that seem to be going completely against my well-being.
I am excited to continue to explore through my art and my writing all the things I mention above, thank you for following along!
