#mothers motherswhomake

[matildainmotion]

Crowdfunding Diary #14: The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, The Virgin Mary and other Amazing Mothers (An Alternative Christmas story)

Here it is: the final day of our crowdfunding campaign. I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I pressed the ‘Go Live’ button 28 days ago on the Crowdfunder website. It was rather like motherhood: you can have no idea how intense it is going to be until you ‘go live.’

           I heard in November that we had been successful in our Arts Council grant application. I knew we needed to match fund it and it made sense to me to look to crowdfunding as an answer. The last time I applied to the Arts Council was 10 years ago to create and tour an aerial-theatre solo show. This time my project could not have been less solo. I want to found a national network.  I thought I should ask the people who would directly benefit from the initiative for support, that way I would be raising funds and building the network at the same time.

           This much has happened and I am thrilled. It has been amazing to feel the ‘crowd’ of you growing out across the land. In contrast to the adventurous independence of summer, winter feels like a time to come together, so it has felt good, despite the apparent drawbacks of crowdfunding before Xmas, to be building a tribe as the days shorten and the nights draw in. After today, as we roll into Christmas, turn to home, to present-wrapping and potato-peeling, I shall go offline but I shall also carry you with me. I shall feel differently knowing you are out there and that you believed in Mothers Who Make enough to have supported it and to be reading this.

           In the first ‘Crowdfunding Diary’ I wrote, I described the experience of being ‘on’ as a mother and how it related for me to the experience of being onstage as a performer. Crowdfunding has also felt like being onstage, but as in my mothering, the hours are different to the performer’s usual schedule: it is a durational act, a 24/7 of ‘on’-ness. To this degree crowdfunding has felt like mothering an ever-expanding family. I am reminded of that nursery rhyme,

           There was an old woman who lived in a shoe.

           She had so many children she didn’t know what to do.

           She gave them all broth without any bread,

           She whipped them all soundly and sent them to bed.

I don’t share that old woman’s parenting style but I can certainly relate to her level of overwhelm, to the point that providing proper meals feels like a huge challenge and bedtime seems like the only solution to gaining any mental space. Becoming a mother, pressing the ‘Go Live’ button on the crowdfunder page – these things both made me grow up fast. They forced me to examine my values, to name why I am doing what I am doing and get behind it in a way no Arts Council application has ever required of me. Motherhood and crowdfunding are both terrifyingly rigorous endeavours. I am grateful for it, and I am also glad to be going back to mothering only two children for a while over Xmas, as opposed to a whole crowd of them.

           Since it has felt like being ‘on’ non-stop and as this is our last day of it, this blog feels like a curtain call, and so I notice there are certain people I want to credit and to thank.

           There is a long list of mothers/makers whose support has been invaluable and without whom none of this would ever have even happened. However right now there are three people in particular I want to name.

           The first is Naomi Stadlen who wrote the book What Mothers Do Especially When It Looks Like Nothing. This brilliant book draws on Naomi’s years of running a group in North London called Mothers Talking. I read the book, looked her up and to my delight discovered the group was still going – it is now in its 25th year. My son and I made the great pilgrimage from South to North London to attend Mothers Talking and it was amazing. It was the only mother and child group to which I went in those early days where I felt the depth, complexity and intensity of what I was experiencing was acknowledged and given value.  We didn’t talk about baby purees, we talked about exhaustion, about identity, about the political implications of the daily choices we make as mothers, raising the next generation. Mothers Who Make meetings are based on the structure which Naomi Stadlen has been using for 25 years to run Mothers Talking.  Thank you Naomi.

           The next credit. Another great woman, and another great book: Lucy Pearce who wrote The Rainbow Way, Cultivating Creativity In The Midst of Motherhood. In it Lucy contrasts the wellknown ‘Earth Mother’ archetype to the lesser known archetype of the ‘Creative Rainbow Mother.’ Back to that old woman in the shoe (maybe she was a frustrated creative? Why else would she have been living in a shoe?!) Lucy named my experience of struggling to get the broth and the bread on the table for my children on time everyday, because I was so busy trying to sustain my creative practice alongside my mothering. Her book enabled me to take the step of articulating and understanding my experience of mothering and making as a ‘thing,’ it wasn’t just me being a bad mother. Thank you Lucy.

           The last credit, and this time it is not a woman and there is no book involved.  It is a man: my husband. Phelim McDermott. In our household I am a full time mum and Phelim goes out to work, directs shows and, this last year, goes on the TV, albeit for 20 seconds, to collect his Olivier Award for his recent opera. Meanwhile I am at home, sitting on the landing trying to grab half an hour while the children are still asleep to write another page of the novel I have been struggling to write for the last 5 years, wondering if I will ever get it finished and published. These are our roles. On this campaign they have been reversed. I have been the visible one. He has been the one quietly and unstintingly supporting me behind-the-scenes. So I want to thank him and all the partners of the mother/makers. I have been touched by how many men and non-mothers have given to our campaign and this in turn makes me think of Christmas….

           Christmas is a strange and amazing story in which the dad is not the lead role. Joseph is a minor character. There are of course a couple of main parts for the boys – there is the baby Jesus, but as a baby he is best played by a doll at this stage, and there is the father with a capital F, not Father Christmas who has rather stolen the limelight, but God the Father. As ‘Fathers who Make’ goes, He claims the biggest creative credit going – the universe. However, He is offstage, or rather He does the lighting, lays on a special star. In this part of the story, the one we are heading towards now, the main part goes to the mother, Mary. It is her moment. She gave birth in a stable. Having given birth twice now, I can imagine this. I can imagine the ‘lowing cattle’ might have been quite helpful, a comfort even– labouring is such an animal thing. Such an extraordinary mixture of animal and spirit coming together.

           I was brought up Catholic. I do not define myself as this now but I do love carols. I am going to take the children carol-singing tonight, in the village where I grew up and where my mum still lives. My son’s favourite is “Oh Little Town of Bethelem.” I like that one too. There is one line in it that gets to me,

           “Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light,/ The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.”

Imagine that – all the hopes and all the fears from all the years, gathered together in the streets. I love that image. This is my wish for Mothers Who Make and for the new year ahead, that we can make space, amidst the streets across the land, for gatherings of hopes and fears. Here is my prayer or wish – that all the mothers may know they are not alone, and that all the makers may know that, no matter what its outcome, what they are doing is worthwhile.

You have one more day to help make this happen: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/mothers-who-make

[centrestagereviews]

Interview: Courtenay Johnson and Jo Blake from Mothers Who Make

Interview: Courtenay Johnson and Jo Blake from @MothersWhoMake "When times are tough, it can be so easy to think you’re struggles are unique or worse than other peoples ... often all you need is a space to connect, talk, laugh"

A brand new hub is coming to Northamptonshire for Mothers Who Make!

The sessions will be led by Carbon Theatre’s Courtenay Johnson and story teller Jo Blake, and will create a supportive shape for mothers to explore how being a mother and an artist can enrich both experiences. They hope to connect a network of artists and mothers, to help strengthen the creative roots of Northamptonshire.

The…

[limberdoodle]

Children are a Massive Nuisance

Or are they? Yes, they are. But, like all things that are a Nuisance, (Death, Love, Intelligence, Breastfeeding, Dog Poo on my Shoes – well, maybe not dog poo on my shoes* - ) they are also an Opportunity.

The nuisance of children is also an opportunity to care. I think caring is good, although I’m aware that not everyone agrees with me. The people, for instance, who refuse to give up a seat on the tube for a pregnant woman because “she chose to get pregnant”, they would probably prefer a world where nobody had to care for or about anybody. The thing is, all of us need care at some point: some people need care throughout their lives, and the rest of us, whether you be house-spouse, businessperson, President, or even Charlotte Gainsbourg, need care when they are a baby, and in old age, unless you are lucky enough to meet a sudden end by car-crash/heart attack/assassination, in which case I’d better get my congrats in in advance as well as a thank you for minimizing the nuisance.

This photo, which I’m calling Not-A-Problems, sums up my Summer 2017, the seemingly endless days before my eldest child started school. A summer of caring, playing, and, because we like sunshine and don’t have a garden, being a nuisance in the parks and streets. I didn’t notice the ‘Men Problems/ Women Problems’ behind them until long after I took this, but it does seem pertinent: gender politics was on my mind, childcare and emotional labour, gender stereotyping of children…and I love that the doll’s lack of genitals is on display. And as we whiled away the long days, staying as long as we could get away with before being told, sometimes with looks, tuts and sighs, sometimes explicitly, to move on (“for Health and Safety reasons you understand…”) I had to keep reminding myself that they – we - were people, not problems; citizens, not nuisances.

To be fair, we possibly aren’t the most upstanding of citizens. The youngest one enjoys licking those large pictures of food on shops, particularly ice-cream signage. Local food stores probably despair at the removal of the light air-brushing of pollution that lends a greyish soft-focus to their images of giant edibles. They both lick the occasional lamppost too. Don’t ask me why, but I bet there’s a few local dogs that are furious at the unorthodox introduction of toddler-spittle into their complex territorial marking system.

But I think it’s fair to say we weren’t really hurting anybody, and one of the things I’ve found hardest since having children is the sense of becoming part of a massive nuisance, a problem for men, and particularly women, to solve.

Caring is hard work. It is a nuisance, I suppose. (And it’s certainly not a 24/7 profession in my own personal utopia, it’s something best shared with other roles.) But it’s a nuisance that gives us our humanity.

I’ve been moved to blog by association with a crowdfunding campaign for Mothers Who Make, a grassroots initiative that helps mothers to continue their creative work, which can be surprisingly difficult when you’re dividing your time between doing two sorts of work that seem to be represented in general as boring necessity/nuisance/indulgent/pointless.

Why has it been useful for me? To be disgustingly personal for a moment; because It gets people together at a time that can be isolating, and talking about stuff that often feels familiar but un-speakable. Lots of the things I’ve thought since having children feel outrageous and perverted admissions. Things like “I like breastfeeding” or “I’d rather look after my toddler myself”. Things that I still feel are both too dangerously radical to be admitting in public and also strange things to feel so taboo, considering that I am in fact a mammal. But I’d probably never even have said them out loud to myself if it wasn’t for Mothers Who Make. It has also reminded me that every almost-satisfactory piece of work I’ve loved creating has been through collaboration with the troubled misfits I call my friends. Without the nuisance/alchemy of relationship, for me, there is no work.

And there’s no Play or Caring either. Mothers Who Make promotes the values - and the actuality - of Caring and of Playing, values that I think are important for any human. Matilda Leyser’s blog of December 3rd (shared below) is eloquent on this subject if you need any more convincing. Giving a small amount to the crowdfunder will help Mothers Who Make bring our massive nuisances together and turn them into an opportunity to enhance our humanity.

*You know, Dog Poo on my shoes is an opportunity. It’s the opportunity to clean my shoes with an old toothbrush. When do I ever get them that clean otherwise? Please note: I am not comparing having children to having dog poo on my shoes. And nor should anyone.

https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/mothers-who-make

#motherswhomake

[matildainmotion]

CONFESSION TIME!

I have a confession to make. Our crowdfunding campaign requires me to champion mother-artists loud and clear, to trumpet, broadcast, sing out, enthuse, eulogize about this mothering/ making cause to as many people as possible, to those I know and those I don’t, to the rich and the famous, the good and the great, and still there are more I should be contacting. Yet all this while there is a secret part of me that is against it. That does not want to place a pledge. That feels not pride of the cause but shame.

           I believe there are two sources of this, two ‘inner critics’ I am carrying. The first is male, the second female.

           The man, first. We live in a culture in which motherhood is not sexy. It is the awkward consequence after the sex is over. It is undeniably personal and the personal, as opposed to the professional, is gendered female and is somewhat embarrassing. Motherhood is leaky: blood, meconium, pee, poo, puke, milk and tears. I feel it when I breastfeed in public, which at present I do daily. I am bold about it, but I am not immune to the awkwardness in the air during the fraction of a second when the man in the bike shop glances down. I went in to pick up our son’s scooter. My baby is nursing in the sling – the top of my breast is visible. The bike shop owner is a nice man. He does not mean any harm, but it is not easy. This is a man’s world of bike tyres, Alan keys and other cool tools. Grease, not milk, is its product. This world extends well beyond the bike shop, out across the land. So it is hard, despite my politics, to stand there in the midst of motherhood and feel no hint of shame.

           My second secret source of shame is not to do with men, or it is, but not directly. It feels even harder to name. Another awkward moment: I am with a woman, a performer with whom I once did a show. She tells me about her latest tour, I tell about how my son has just lost his first milk tooth. The difference between us feels difficult. I happen to know that there was a time when this woman wanted a child. I know no more than that.

            I feel a sense of guilt, confusion, betrayal even, in relation to the women who, for whatever reason, have not had children. I think this comes from the huge taboos there are around many child-bearing issues: miscarriage, infertility, abortion, and also from the depth of the pain and loss potentially involved. This is on the one hand. On the other, there is the fact that whilst motherhood may not be sexy it is nonetheless expected, so it is assumed that there is a sad story involved in the plight of the childless woman – maybe, but maybe not. How to celebrate those incredible women who do not become mothers? Such a tangle of important, fraught, delicate issues and questions. So, whilst I champion the mothers, I want to take care of all women, everywhere, and I do not know how.

           Confession over. It is 7am and the alarm has gone off – time to get the children up and go to school. Time to get back to being proud and loud about mothering and making, which is not in fact to deny the shame or the difficulty underneath, but rather to provide a space in which it can safely be named. If anything is going to change we need those spaces. Go here to support me to make more of them: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/mothers-who-make

[matildainmotion]

A Post- Script: where it all began....

The first blog I ever wrote about MWM, back in 2014.  

Mothers: they’re everywhere. And nowhere. On the one hand there are phenomena such as Mumsnet that have never been more prominent or more influential, with its pronouncements making TV news. On the other hand, having been a mother for two years now, my own experience and that of others with whom I have spoken is still often one of isolation and under confidence. When I travel into central London during the day with my son, Riddley, I rarely see other mothers around. There are pockets of them, in designated toddler-friendly spaces – parks, playgrounds, certain cafes – but they are not out and about at large. When I do cross paths with one, getting off a train, or standing by the pedestrian crossing waiting for the green man, where Riddley likes to press the button, we often exchange a look, a cautious smile of recognition, as if part of some dangerous underground movement, not Mumsnet, but some quieter, more diffident network.

Here is a game I play on the train, when there are no other mothers about: I look at the people in the carriage and imagine this: once upon a time – and it is mythic like a fairy tale – once upon a time each person that I see grew inside a woman’s body. They were conceived, gestated, birthed, like a great idea or piece of art, except of course the terms by which the artistic process is described come from mothering and not the other way around. As with most metaphors, they come from the matter of us, our physical forms informing how we think and dream. 

Mothers make people. Not single-handedly (though some almost!). This is a big claim but not intended as an arrogant, hubristic one because of what motherhood has taught me about what ‘making’ means, which has been profoundly humbling. Right from the start it has undone me, has taught me more about the creative process than 12 years at school, a literature degree, a Circus Arts foundation course and two arts-based M.A.s. It has made it radically clear to me, what none of my academic training did, that my main task as a mother and as an artist is to get out the way, or rather not to get in the way of the creative process doing itself. When my son was growing inside me I had to make space for him in my body, house him as he came into form, but he did all the growing. So it continues now he is two years old and racketing around the living room, pushing our sliding doors back and forth, trying to climb the bookshelves. I must be patient, present, alert, keep the bookshelves from toppling down on top of him, vigilant in the true sense, keeping vigil night after night, but I cannot control or claim ownership of this most fundamental of creative processes: a person, coming into personhood.

Before becoming a mother, when I just did the work of being a trapeze artist and performer (I’ll come back to that ‘just’) I got a job with a company called Improbable to make a show called ‘Panic’ about the Great God Pan. I was touched and inspired by the rehearsal process because it was the first time that I had seen any show truly allowed to make itself, to emerge rather than be hurried, judged, disciplined into being. My experience as a performer, and maker of my own work, was that shows did this – grew themselves, had a life of their own - whether the directors and the cast liked it or not, and often they didn’t. I was excited to find a company that explicitly celebrated this ‘life-of-its-own’ ness, rather than trying to control, suppress or push it offstage. I remember Lee and Phelim telling us that there were only four things we had to do to make the show: 

Turn up Pay Attention Tell the Truth Don’t be attached to the results.

(An abbreviated version of Angeles Arrien’s work, ‘The Fourfold Way’). 

  Riddley, along with some other children, is a result of that show - that’s the ‘life-of-its-own’ness that can happen when you make a show about the Great God Pan! Now that I am a mother those four things seem more relevant than ever: they are still all I have to do, all I can do and they are, of course, the hardest thing that has ever been required of me. Back to that ‘just’… I have been staggered since Riddley was born by the disparity between the work of mothering and how it is valued. It is the most challenging work I have ever undertaken, the longest hours, the keenest presence and resourcefulness required. It is also the most important work on every level, personal and political. No one denies these things when named. And yet. And yet…

“Are you doing any work?” “No, I’m just being a mum for now” 

…is an entirely ordinary exchange which I have heard myself and others repeat in various versions, over and over again. I read briefly on a leaflet that fell through the door, and that Riddley rushed to pick up and re-post, of how the Labour party are promising subsidised childcare. This is vital for the majority of women, who have to work alongside being a mother to survive, and important for those who positively want to go back to other forms of work – a choice which I respect and admire, since it requires a monumental act of multi-tasking (even with childcare, they are still being mothers and doing another job). I, on the other hand, am in the privileged position of being able to choose to look after my son full-time. For me, handing Riddley over to someone else whilst I go out and do a ‘proper job’ would feel like handing my creative writing over to someone else to do. I don’t think this makes me a better mother, it is simply my version of this mothering experience. Deeply unfashionable and contentious I know but I would like mothers to be subsidised to look after their own children if they wish to do so (yes, there are child benefits but they are not sufficient to enable most women to afford to be full-time mothers), or at least not pressurised into not doing so. I want to mother my own child and make my own art.

Art. It’s everywhere. And nowhere. Like mothers. Like mothering, art is so fundamental to our being here, so powerful and pervasive as to be rendered, in many contexts, invisible. Here is another game I play on the train - while watching over Riddley as he rushes to the doors at every station, wanting to press the button that makes them open and lets the people on and off - I try to imagine each person at his age, playing, and their play being a serious business. 

It has been well researched and established by now (see Winnicot for example) that art, by which I mean any kind of playing, image-making, story-telling, is not a dispensable luxury. It is entirely fundamental and essential to our growth, as vital as sleep to our health and development. What is less well recognised is that play is not only the province of the young – it’s not a one shot deal. It is true that we have to do it full-time and full out when we are children. It is true that mothering in the early years is especially intense, but no one ever stops having a mother, even after she has died, and no one ever stop needing to make stories, images, to play. Even something as business-like and hard-nosed as the Stock Exchange is based on soft-bellied feelings – fear, excitement – that come from stories, imaginings made in equally soft grey parts of our minds. Adverts are capitalism’s testimony to the power of art. Images work on us. They work in us. They make us work. They make us and we make them - and so the cycle goes on. Both images and mothers are fundamental to our origins, to our sense of who and how we are. I am placing these two things in parallel, but they also meet: think of the cartoon of the bird that hatches out of the egg and connects to the first creature that it sees: the image of its mother. 

I am a mother and an artist: I write and I perform and I look after Riddley. I believe that these two jobs are intimately connected and that both are vital. I feel incredibly lucky to be doing them. Both are also marginalised in the current climate. So I have begun a group. It is called “Mothers who Make” and it is for people that, in any capacity, do both these jobs, of mother and artist, care about both and do not want to compromise on either (for details of the group, please see below this). I have been touched by the strength of the response so far to my announcement of the group – it has affirmed there is a need for it, for this work to be named, recognised, supported. 

I do not have the answer. I do not know how to do it – how to be a mother or an artist, let alone both. I know for sure I cannot do it on my own. So far I have relied heavily on Phelim, my husband, for financial and emotional support, and my own fantastic mother for support with Riddley. They are downstairs as I write this – granny and grandson. He will be busy with his trains, making their pistons go back and forth on his steam engines, talking about the stations they are passing through – “Finchley Road and Frognal, Picallili Circus, London Waterloo only!” – he powers himself, pistons and all, into the world and the world, its images and station names chuff their way inside him – this is important work, I know of nothing more so. 

You have until 1.55pm today (21/12/17) to fund Mothers Who Make to grow nation-wide: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/mothers-who-make

[matildainmotion]

Crowdfunding Diary #9  The Mothers Who Make Founding Principles

I’ll be honest – I’m flagging. A combination of the time of year, the intensity of running a crowdfunding campaign, the need to keep on cheering and championing this cause when another part of me wants to curl up in the dark with the baby, who is still asleep in the bed beside me as I write this. Time I think to go back to what I know – the principles which underlie Mothers Who Make, from which it grew. As MWM began to spread in wonderful ways across the country I wanted to look after it and make sure that, as far as possible, any groups starting up under the MWM name were true to the original vision behind the initiative, so I wrote the principles down. They will live on our website – the one we are raising money to fund. Here they are – not the Founding Fathers’ words, but the Founding Mother’s:

MWM PRINCIPLES:

CHILDREN WELCOME

The events are adult-centred but children are welcome to attend and participate. One of the motivations behind MWM was my experience that there are two kinds of spaces which most mothers must navigate: child-centred ones with the adults needs marginalised (playgrounds, one o’clock clubs) and adult-centred ones with the children absent or unwelcome (rehearsal rooms, meetings, offices). MWM events model a third kind of adult-centred, child-friendly space. The space should reflect this – bring toys and lay on the crayons and paper! The children, if possible, should enjoy the meetings as much as the mothers.

ANY KIND OF MOTHER

Events are open to all mothers, expectant mothers, new mothers, mothers with older children, grandmothers, mothers who have adopted, mothers who breastfeed, mothers who bottlefeed. Mothers of any race, religion, sexual orientation. Mothers with a disability.

ANY KIND OF MAKER

All art forms are welcome – writers, musicians, actors, film-makers, dancers, visual artists. We’ve also welcomed producers, architects, historians – in short anyone engaged in a creative practice that they hold dear. Makers can be professional and/or passionate. No particular level of experience is necessary to attend – women at any stage of their careers or creative journeys are welcome.

MOTHERING AND MAKING VALUED EQUALLY

Each participant is recognised and valued in her dual roles of mother and maker – these are held with equal esteem and regard, in contrast to the wider cultural trend which consistently values professional work over and above personal, domestic or emotional labour. We also hold space for exploring the ways in which the two roles might inform each other, rather than starting from the assumption that they must be always be in conflict.

PEER SUPPORT

The events held under the MWM name are egalitarian and collaborative in nature. We sit in circles, not in chairs in rows. We listen to each other with respect and empathy and without judgement. We share experiences and resources. This is a non-hierarchical model– we work collectively and are our own experts. 

DIVERSITY We respect and recognise that there is no one kind of mother or maker, and no single solution to the myriad challenges facing a woman who holds these two roles in her life. Each woman’s experience is valid and welcomed.

If you support these principles and want to see more spaces round the country based upon them, go here to make it happen: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/mothers-who-make

[matildainmotion]

MOTHERS WHO MAKE: FOR THOSE WHO ARE NOT MOTHERS OR MAKERS, WHY YOU MIGHT CARE…

           Mothers Who Make is a support network for mother-artists that I founded, a cause I am championing, a crowdfunding campaign I am leading. But I am troubled. There is a voice in me, and no doubt in the world, that says, “Mothers who make - that’s a bit niche isn’t it? What about everyone else?” It is time to pause on the tweeting, facebook-posting, emailing and to give space to this voice, to listen and respond. Here goes…

           What about, for a start, the fathers who make? And what about those women who are not mothers? What about those that wanted to have children but couldn’t? Or those who decided against it? What about other kinds of caring? Motherhood is in many ways the most visible and validated form of care. What about those mothering their mothers or fathers? Looking after siblings? A spouse? A friend? A neighbour? What about those (all of us?) who are struggling simply to care for ourselves?  

           And the ‘make’ part: what about those who make stuff but do not identify themselves as artists? What, as my prestigious plant biologist sister says, about the scientists? What about the countless creative endeavours that take place not under the name of ‘art’? What about the bakers and the candlestick-makers? What, in other words, is so special about mothers who make?

           I will say what I shouldn’t: nothing.

           Or rather, to be more accurate, there is something special about mother-artists but there is also something special, particular and deserving of recognition about all those other kinds of groups, individuals, challenges, experiences that I have begun to name (and my list was only a small beginning). So then why am I leading this mother/ maker movement?

           Let me try to explain.

           I have read two books recently. I read them slowly, two pages at a time, often by the light of my phone in the dark of the children’s bedroom once they had fallen asleep and I did not want to wake them by getting up and leaving the room. One was The Gardener and The Carpenter by evolutionary psychologist Alison Gopnik and the other was Sapiens, a Brief History of Human kind by Yuval Noah Hurari. In different ways they both name certain extraordinary traits of the human race that have contributed, for better and for worse, to our domination of the world.

           One of these is the incredible amount of time, energy and resources that we pour into raising our young. Another, closely related to this, is the extent of our social networks – the strength and breadth of the bonds that we build. And lastly, again linked to the others, is our ability to tell stories, to create and sustain fictions. In other words, we look after each other and we make stuff up. We love and we lie. We nurture and we create.

           Underneath the ‘Mothers Who Make’ banner this is my deeper interest. It cuts across categories. I name it in the campaign video. There are two verbs that matter to me, to us: we care and we play.

           What I find extraordinary about the times we live in, is how it is abundantly clear that our survival and well being still rests on these two forces of care and play – they run under everything, from Christmas to the stock exchange, from Disney to the NHS, and yet they have precious little value or recognition in the current cultural climate, certainly in the UK. The caring professions, for example, are some of the least well paid. Women still talk about ‘just’ being a mum and often need and/or want to hand their children over to others (childcarers, nannies, nurseries) in order to get back to doing some ‘proper’ work.

           Meanwhile the arts are being steadily axed from our curriculum. Children have less and less free playtime, despite the fact that the research is abundantly clear: we need to play for our developmental health. Artists, like mothers are not considered to have ‘proper’ jobs.  Yet there has perhaps never been a time when we more desperately need our imaginations, need to use our amazing ability to conceive of other ways to live.

           I want to lead a campaign, to stage a revolution about the valuing of care and play, two things which we ALL do, whoever we are. Why then am I focussing on mothers who make? There are three reasons.

           First, I am one. I am a mother, a theatre-maker and a writer and I have become fascinated by the profound relationship between the two roles of mother and maker – the multiple ways in which they connect even whilst the culture informs me I cannot fully do both.

           Secondly, I know from my writing that it is more potent to be specific, more effective to campaign for ‘mothers who make’ than for the abstract and grand notions of ‘care and play,’ and to be a mother-artist is to be a clear champion of those forces. Mothering is, hopefully, the first kind of care we know. We learn how to care from our mothers. Meanwhile, to be an artist, of any kind, is to make a passionate commitment to play. To play seriously, beyond childhood. To believe in stuff that does not yet exist. Mothers Who Make is for women who are dedicated to their children and their art and do not want to compromise on either – it is there to help these people keep on being champions for care and for play.

           Thirdly, there is work to be done in this area. I was shocked on becoming a mother at how marginalised I felt. On the one hand this was not an elite group – motherhood is common. There are many of us. And yet I felt immediately less sure of my place. As one mother wrote on our FB page, “I had no idea that the apparently vanilla act of breeding would lead to feelings of radical otherness.” So I feel there is a big piece of work to be done specifically around valuing this work that women do, of child-bearing and rearing, even as we encourage the men to play their part. And there is another, perhaps more obvious piece of work still to be done around supporting women-artists of every ilk to be able to practice, share and grow their work.

           BUT I am writing this blog because it is important to me that Mothers Who Make is generous and expansive, not exclusive. The reason I want to be specific is, ultimately, to better honour and explore the deeper forces at work that cut across categories. In running a network for mothers who are artists I hope that everyone who is busy, working with all their might at caring, playing for all their worth, might also feel better valued and recognised.

           So if you are not a mother or a maker but you care for anyone, you create anything, I hope this work can, albeit indirectly, be a part of changing the way your work is valued too, your care and your play. This is the quiet revolution I want to stage. Please go here to make it happen:

[matildainmotion]

Sustainability?

This month the questions are coming first – read them, even if you don’t read the rest of the blog. I want to hear your answers. Here are my three questions: 1)    What sustains you? 2)    In what way does MWM sustain you? And how could it sustain you better? 3)    How could MWM, as a movement, itself become more sustainable? We would really love to hear your answers - you can send us an email (matilda@motherswhomake.org), write us a postcard (Mothers Who Make c/o Improbable, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 1LA), or answer us on social media (Twitter @MothersWhoMake or on Facebook here) - you can even use #SustainingMWM

           Sustainability: it’s a new word invented for our times – first used in the 1970s because so much of what we were and are doing isn’t it, so we needed to start being able to talk about it. The roots of the word are of course much older: sustinere, the Latin word, made from sub (up from below) and tenere (to hold). As with many words to sustain carries paradoxical meanings: both to be nourished and supported by something, as in ‘the food sustained us’ and to endure something, to suffer it, as in ‘she sustained an injury.’ It can refer therefore to the thing that both upholds you, and the thing that drags you down, the thing that keeps you going and the thing that nearly stops you but you manage to keep on anyway. Sounds like motherhood to me. Sounds like making. Sounds like caring for children and sounds like trying to make some art. I am interested in this paradox, this doubleness, how something can be both a challenge and an ally, a drain and a support, because somewhere in the midst of this alchemical contradiction I think the golden goal of ‘sustainability’ is probably to be found.

           There is a term that has been coined even more recently than the word ‘sustainability’ but it is meant to help us achieve it: ‘me time.’ It’s not just mothers that are meant to sustain themselves by making sure they have some ‘me time’, but certainly we are one of the categories of people that apparently most need it. I have a strong reaction to the phrase because it seems to override the paradoxes and complexity inherent in the quest for genuine sustainability. Don’t get me wrong - I am as desperate for some time alone as the next mother (even as I write this I can hear my daughter coming up the stairs to look for me) but however desperate I may be I still want to resist a paradigm that implies that my time with my children is not for me but for them, that splits ‘me’ up in this way and does not celebrate the many ways in which my children sustain me – hold me up from below – even as I strive to sustain them. I want to resist a paradigm that measures resources, divvies up time into mine and theirs, because things are so critical, so unsustainable at present in my life and in the world at large, that I know we need to turn to renewable resources, to the ones that come freely and that keep on giving no matter what and that don’t involve my knowing my times tables up to 12, and how to divide the hours of my day up by the number of members in my family.  

           So what’s the new paradigm? I do not know – I’m feeling my way towards it. I know it’s the one that underlies Mothers Who Make, one that acknowledges the complexity of our work. In a MWM meeting everyone has their turn, their time, but it isn’t ‘me-time’ so much as the renewable, reciprocal resource that is shared time – time to share what is holding you up or pulling you down, or both. One of the questions with which I am grappling at the moment is whether this simple ‘shared time’ structure is the best one for all MWM meetings or whether we should diversify and explore different ways of supporting one another. I’d love to hear your answers to this and the other questions with which I opened. I know that hearing each other’s answers is itself a big part of the sustainable answer…. I will end, for now, by giving you mine:

1)   What sustains you? My children. My husband. My mother. My friends. Sleep. Food. Writing. Reading. Moving. Climbing. Being near or in water. Being near or in the woods.

2)   In what way does MWM sustain you? And how could it sustain you better? It provides me with a community, actual and virtual. It enables me to articulate and understand my daily experiences and challenges in a wider context, beyond the immediate one around me, which is often just me and the children, playing out on the pavement before the house. 

MWM could sustain me better by being solidly, reliably there – an established thing that I do not need to keep inventing. A local and national resource.

3)   How could MWM as a movement become more sustainable? More funding would help, but as well more connected-ness. I need to give it over to more of you to sustain it, to sustain ourselves, in the paradoxical way that I believe it can.

[matildainmotion]

The Importance of Peer Support and Lucy’s Blog

Sometimes I feel under pressure to ‘big’ Mothers Who Make up, to speak of grand visions of exhibitions, platforms of work, commissions, publications, festivals – all of which would be wonderful, any of which may well happen, but how it started, and the main form it still takes, is none of these things. It started as a peer support group – that is a group of people, in this case creative mothers, in a room, in a circle, sharing their experiences, listening to one another and responding. That simple. In this day and age of snazzy social media, glossy marketing materials, funky websites, I can feel almost embarrassed by the simplicity of it. Surely there should be more to it than that? And then I hear back from a mother who came to a meeting. I hear what it meant to her, and I trust again that, yes, it is that simple – people in the same room, in a circle listening to each other – and it is that powerful. We need this, in our world of snazzy social media we need it more than ever. So however Mothers Who Make grows, and I hope it does grow in many wonderful ways, it will always also be a simple, powerful peer-support group. Thank you to Lucy Simm for reminding me of this in her moving testimony to MWM here:

On the 16th May last year I made what for me at the time was a big journey by train from Halifax to Manchester with my good friend Zoe to attend a peer support group called Mothers Who Make. We didn't really know much about it but as mothers and artists we just knew we needed to go. Excited and nervous we walked into a room full of strangers. We sat around in a circle feeling like we were attending an AA meeting. Some mothers brought along children of varying ages from babes in arms to older ones freely roaming the room and playing with toys. Some mothers had older children at school and others like me had their child with grandparents. We all had the connected experience of being mothers and artists. A very different dynamic to the usual mother and baby group. This was a room full of creatives.

I listened intently to the introduction and explanation of how the meeting would progress. The group format allows each person to talk uninterrupted for a period of time. As a mother that is a powerful thing. To be listened to. To be recognised. To be valued. The circle allows you to share personal experience, thoughts, ideas, challenges and woes in a non judgemental setting. Mothering and working creatively can both be quite isolating experiences so to have the shared support is incredibly important.

I was in the fortunate position of sharing a studio with 3 wonderful mothers who are all makers. I had their support throughout my early mothering and creative journey. This support was invaluable and allowed me to continue striving forward despite not being clear where exactly I was heading.

"Back in the room" to HOME in Manchester where I opened my heart and shared my story. Of my adventures in life, motherhood and creativity. I cried openly. I connected through shared experiences with a couple of mothers at similar stages of mothering to me. It was cathartic, it was uplifting and most of all it was empowering. I felt I could take on the world. It felt like a circle of strength.

We left the group and strode through the streets arms linked... talking not of burning bras but this time around we would be burning knickers!

Something changed within me from that one meeting. I knew I had a renewed purpose in my making. I knew I could value it as intrinsically important to my present and future life. A part of who I am as a person. I knew it had to continue to be a part of my identity. I wasn't "just a mum". Or "just mucking about at the studio" as I often devalued myself when explaining to others what I did... partly because I felt that's what other people felt I was doing. HELL NO. I was in the infancy of creating "something". I still didn't know what that "something" was... as I was still in the exploratory experimental stages... but I needed to value that stage. It was hard to value that which didn't create a value itself. It wasn't earning me any money. Infact it was costing ME money to use the studio. It could have also cost me money for childcare. As a family we had made the decision for me to spend the majority of my time doing the wonderful and all consuming job of mothering. Having had a long and painful journey getting there I wanted to soak up and treasure as much time doing this as I possibly could. I also knew that to do that to the best of my abilities I needed time to be me and creatively explore who I was as a person not just a mother. Serendipity landed at my door when my little boy was one year old and I was in the privileged position to be able to jump at the chance of sharing a studio. We couldn't have done this without the incredible support of grandparents gifting us free childcare.

I returned to Halifax where a little seed of an idea had been planted in my mind. If I felt this depth of change within me from one meeting then more mothers needed to experience this feeling. I knew in that moment that I needed to set up a group in Halifax. So I contacted Matilda Leyser the founder of Mothers Who Make and after several months of planning the Mothers Who Make Halifax group was formed on the 12th September 2016.

The group created a spring board for me to really connect with my own work. Through sharing my experiences with the group and hearing other mother makers talk of their own experiences we creatively pushed each other forward with gentle nurturing hands. Tears were frequent but not an essential part of the meetings. After 9 months I experienced a few health issues that forced me to reconnect with my personal goals. I felt I was spinning too many plates and needed to reevaluate where my energy was going, otherwise I'd rapidly be stumbling over broken crockery. I cancelled a few meetings then after a break over the summer I made the difficult decision to hand over the group to Alice Bradshaw, who has been a key supporter of MWM Halifax from the very beginning. The timing was right for both of us. Alice has done an amazing job in taking over the reins and steering the group from strength to strength. I'm a little reluctant to fully step away from the group after investing so much emotional energy into it but I'm trying my best to be a supportive member, attending meetings and not muscling in on what is now Alice's baby.

This long story... which took me nearly 2 hours to write on a rock and roll Saturday night in... was initially intended to be a short supportive post for Mothers Who Make. But that's where it can't be just that. The reason it's taken me so long to add my support to this crowdfunder and to find the headspace to write this... because it IS so much more than a few whimsical paragraphs written in between cooking tea and bedtime. Mothers Who Make allowed ME to believe in ME. Believe I could create something from nothing... starting from a blank canvas. In the early days I was often reminded of the Peter Kay song from Max and Paddys campervan road trip with the line "Don't know where I'm going, got no way of knowing, driving on the road to nowhere". That's how I often felt. But deep inside I knew it would all make sense eventually. All the exploration, all the experimentation, all the soul searching.

And here I am at the end of the year having created a Facebook page, an Instagram account and my own website where I've just launched my first ever product. All whilst juggling life, the universe and everything in between. But I did it. And I'll continue to do it because I believe I have a reason and a purpose for doing this. For creating my own business. For helping other mother makers to be the change they hope to see in the world. Could I have done it without Mothers Who Make? I very much doubt it. I truly believe this group needs to be supported, to enable it to support other mothers in the country like me. Who want to mother and make at the same time.

Matilda has worked incredibly hard to both create this network and to gain funding from the arts council. Please if you can dig deep in support to raise the funds needed for this campaign. A ripple of change is happening and it's exciting and necessary for all mother makers in the country to be recognised for their hardwork and efforts in both of their undervalued, underpaid / non paid jobs.

My name is Lucy Simm. I am a mother and a maker... and I value both those jobs equally. Thank you for listening <3 

Read more about the campaign here... https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/mothers-who-make #MothersWhoMake

And here is Lucy’s website: https://luminosityandsunshine.co.uk