No Supermoms Here
Hello again or welcome for the first time! It's Genetrix's second issue.
This month has been a blur. When I look at my calendar, it doesn't seem like much has happened. It's just gone by so fast.
I recently read some of Barbara Brownie and Danny Graydon’s The Superhero Costume: Identity and Disguise in Fact and Fiction. In the book, there's a section titled "Parent power." Here are a few key quotes:
Worth noting that, I would expect, parents find themselves transformed by the adoption of a child, too.As the death of family provoked the adoption of heroic identities in Batman and Spider-Man, new parents find themselves transformed by the birth of a child. (p. 130-131)
This prompted me to ask myself about the relationship between motherhood and art. As Hillary Frank pointed out in the piece I linked last month, motherhood has been considered a niche topic, too domestic to be considered real art. But as she also pointed out, motherhood is a rich and important and complex topic. Would it be terrible to be an artist known for doing work related to motherhood? Would you rather avoid being pigeonholed as, like Hillary Frank was, "the baby lady"? Can you separate your identity as a parent from your creative work?It is just as impossible to define any parent without acknowledging their parenthood, as it is to define Bruce Wayne without acknowledging Batman. (p. 131)
Parenthood, like crime-fighting, is labor-intensive, exhausting and emotionally draining… Superhero imagery allows parents to express the tremendous strength that is required in parenthood, along with the new sets of values that emerge with their new identity. (p. 131)
In the Brownie & Graydon book, I ran across the work of Ana Álvarez-Errecalde (I guess I should warn you that her work involves a lot of nudity, breastfeeding, and birthing images, so if you are at the mercy of an organization that doesn't want you looking at that right now, maybe check her out another time), specifically her self-portrait Symbiosis. This photograph immediately took my breath away. It resonated with me on a visceral level. Álvarez-Errecalde herself explains why in this interview with Guernica:
Through learning about Alvarez-Errecalde, I found both Cultural Reproducers, "an evolving group of active cultural workers (professional artists, designers, curators, musicians, performers, writers, etc) who are also parents" and the Artist Parent Index, " a free, online, searchable database of artists, exhibits, and resources exploring reproduction and caretaking."
The mom books and related articles keep on coming, or at least, coming to my attention. In a Shondaland piece from last May, Lynn Strong asks, What Makes a Book a "Mom Book?" and suggests that some books are mom books even if they don't look like it.
Over at Electric Literature, Shanthi Sekeran talks to Lydia Kiesling about her new book, The Golden State, which centers motherhood. Like Alvarez-Errecalde, she credits motherhood as the source of her art: "I do believe that I owe this book entirely to having my first child."
And there are more coming all the time: I've got Advanced Review Copies of Mothering While Black and Slay Like a Mother, both due out next month. I hope to include reviews of both in next month's issue. The former is an academic text and the latter is self-help. Because of how academic publishing works, Mothering While Black is much more expensive than most books you might buy. If you want to read it and can't afford it, contact your library and ask them how to submit a purchase request or get it via Interlibrary Loan. It will probably be a few months before many libraries have it, but it's great to learn how to do these things.
As always, feel free to hit reply to get in touch, and please forward this to anyone you think might need or want stories of creative mothers.
Until next month,
Kimberly
Definitely read the whole interview. Alvarez-Errecalde says, "I became an artist when I became a mother," suggesting not only that you can be both, but that becoming a mother can turn you into an artist. In this interview with Cultural Reproducers, she also talks about including your children in your artistic life, an idea consonant with Austin Kleon's urging to love what you do in front of the kids in your life.Symbiosis (The Four Seasons, 2013-2014) talks about relationships that nourish each other both physically and psychologically. It challenges the idea of a negated mother who also negates her body and her presence to her children, so they will all ultimately conform to our unattended, unloved, and unnourished society. It is not about being a “supermom.” It is about two complete beings that strengthen each other by the relationship they establish. That is where the mutual empowerment resides.
Through learning about Alvarez-Errecalde, I found both Cultural Reproducers, "an evolving group of active cultural workers (professional artists, designers, curators, musicians, performers, writers, etc) who are also parents" and the Artist Parent Index, " a free, online, searchable database of artists, exhibits, and resources exploring reproduction and caretaking."
The mom books and related articles keep on coming, or at least, coming to my attention. In a Shondaland piece from last May, Lynn Strong asks, What Makes a Book a "Mom Book?" and suggests that some books are mom books even if they don't look like it.
Over at Electric Literature, Shanthi Sekeran talks to Lydia Kiesling about her new book, The Golden State, which centers motherhood. Like Alvarez-Errecalde, she credits motherhood as the source of her art: "I do believe that I owe this book entirely to having my first child."
And there are more coming all the time: I've got Advanced Review Copies of Mothering While Black and Slay Like a Mother, both due out next month. I hope to include reviews of both in next month's issue. The former is an academic text and the latter is self-help. Because of how academic publishing works, Mothering While Black is much more expensive than most books you might buy. If you want to read it and can't afford it, contact your library and ask them how to submit a purchase request or get it via Interlibrary Loan. It will probably be a few months before many libraries have it, but it's great to learn how to do these things.
As always, feel free to hit reply to get in touch, and please forward this to anyone you think might need or want stories of creative mothers.
Until next month,
Kimberly
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