Windows To Green: balancing motherhood and art

First off, I must say, Happy Halloween! I hope 'tis a good one and a spooky fun one for all. This is a little post on a subject I've been wanting to write about for some time, and despite this lengthy novel, I've only covered a portion of my thoughts on the matter!

One of my thought-mistakes among those first few months postpartum was a sadness and fear that formed over the idea that I would never be able to have the time or inner strength or wherewithal to play music again or to make art or perform. It has been a returning subject in my brain and I am still in the process of figuring out how it's all going to work out (as I still have much less free time than my former self).

But at least I do know now that not only am I still an artist, but that these arts inside of me often form only from places that in me have experienced more than just regular daily life. After craziness happened. Because after I saw London for the first time, I just had to make stuff about it. After I spent nights crossing the country on a Greyhound bus alone, after I moved to LA and spent hours at cafes and couchsurfing and working at Real Food Daily, after another move to Portland alone where I was freezing all the time, longed for a love, lived in an amazing house with awesome friends, drank too many 1$ Pabsts, went to parties alone, rode my bike home often at 3am, I just had to write and draw about it. And the same for when my heart led me to this magical little forest gem of a town called Nevada City. The parties, the dancing that happened at our downtown Commercial St. apartment! The musicians! The new friends! I met everyone I know now (or many of them) at a Halloween party at Jake and Lindsey's and I became smitten with them all. And it inspired my heart to make arts. Be them songs, drawings, stories.... I made things from my experiences.

Nothing I make is a big deal, I don't take weeks to create something. I don't have art shows. But the things I create are my own.

A photo from recent shoot with the infamous Simon Weller, I can't wait to showcase more of these!

Art and I performing circa 2008

Geeky art scribbles to the max, after I met these kids in 2004 (one of them my future hub!) in NC

So here I am, almost a decade later, and now that I have lived and experienced in another way that I could have never imagined (motherhood, birthing, birth injury, thinking I might actually die, overcoming numbing depression and insane anxiety, the love of a new human being), I feel that the spring from which I draw upon for inspiration is beginning to overflow again. Much of this is inspired by my sweet boy and my absolutely renewed love of nature, which I go on and on about in this previous post.

I have never been a fan of "technical" art, the kind learned in classes or formed just perfectly as so-and-so (insert historic famous artist name here) figured it should be. The way the teacher taught it. Of course the tools to create need to be learned, but I'm talking about the art itself. "How to make good art".... it just doesn't work. In fact "teaching" art seems to go against much of what I consider to BE the concept of art. Music as well. Some of the most technically advanced music in the world seems all out boring to me. Music without heart makes me shiver, in a bad way. Novelty music. Music only for some attempt to be famous or to create the perfect mathematical equation of a song in accordance to music theory. Some of the most elite art schools spew forth art that also seems technically perfect or theoretically "fresh" but that major element that catches your eye or takes your breath away is lacking.

SOUL.

A treasured favorite view, the Sierras from Highway 395

It's what classes can not offer. It is what can NOT be learned from another person. It is the building block of true art.

I always noticed something very odd about playing piano. After taking a break from practicing (I love to practice old ragtime tunes) I would realize that I hadn't sat at a piano in a couple months. I had been out in the world doing other stuff. So I would sit down, expecting to be rusty and shaky and not be able to play the tunes I could before. But always, after going out and exploring the world sans playing music for a little while, I could play my own songs and others' songs better than before! It always blew my mind! It was like taking a break from music made me a better musician? I truly think LIFE is the stuff of art. Without the "living" half you aren't gonna get far in the creative world. Sure, some elite few might think your stuff is cool, but that still doesn't mean that it has SOUL that you went out and earned.

So my personal theory has always been this... GO OUT AND LIVE. Conquer a fear. Travel alone. Move to a new city. Be sad. Be brave. Do what you didn't think you could do. And after that come back and create from the new places in your heart. I mean it doesn't always have to be that way, but God knows those who have lived the most horrific lives are often prolific and some of the most amazing artists and musicians. Where do you think rock n' roll came from? It certainly wasn't the priveleged upper white class of yore, that's for sure.

Ghost towns in the desert make for contented artists

Trial and tribulation, adversity and conflict lead to art. Perfect happy lives can propel some art as well but it seems pretty clear that most of the revolutionary art and music in history comes from upheaval, growing, and overcoming the odds.

And that is exactly the next step in balancing the life of artisan or musician & motherhood.

In order to stay an artist in the face of motherhood you have to grab tight ahold of those reigns and hold on. You have to NOT give in or give up yourself. You have to make time for yourself, whether it feels selfish or not. I truly believe your child will thank you, will love you for it. He will see that your entire existence doesn't revolve around him only, and that is HEALTHY!!!!! It means your child will have a fulfilled, happy parent. It means they will have a shining example of how good life can be. Bucking the damn odds. It's what a new mama HAS GOT to do to hold on to her hat.

Gotta drop some Bryan Adams lyrics in an old notebook, right?

I can't tell you how many times I heard (during those first few months post-birth) "Good Luck. Your life will never be the same..." and with kind of a bad tone about it. Not the encouraging "you will discover your true self" kindness that I heard and wrote about a couple posts ago, but the kind of exhausted tone spoken only by fellow parents who had said goodbye to their own personal plans years ago. It scared the SHIT out of me, that bad tone. Like they were telling me to go and die. Letting go of my personal time and solitude and not being able to create means the certain death of me. Without reveling in the awe of life and being able to have a voice about it, a great reason for living for me is lost. So people telling me that I "will never have the time" again to play music or draw & paint or do graphic design or sketch & code websites felt like they were telling me to commit suicide.

Sure motherhood is creative in its own ways. But it is NOT a substitute for the artist that must stay alive in me. That is where I differ from current mainstream Americana. I don't want to boast, that's not what I mean to do at all. I just have too much going on in my brain sometimes, and this leads to my hundreds of notebooks that are filled with writings. I've been writing in journals and notebooks for 30ish years. On top of those notebooks, about 50 diaries or more. I feel like that freaky guy they find in that one movie about the deadly sins. I have tons of songbooks filled with the words of songs, some with notes written out. I have many recordings of songs, some unfinished, some not. I have my one album that I actually finished. I also have drawing pads, some filled, some not. I have craft boxes that are overflowing with weird stuff I've found and I make things out of. I love to create and I can not help it, it is who I am. It is also who almost ALL of my closest friends are. I am surrounded by art and artists and I can not help it. It is MORE naturally who I am than being a mama is. I never had that regular maternal instinct, I had a creative instinct. Hopefully my boy won't resent me for this and will love me for it. Crossing fingers.

This all relates to SO MANY THINGS I have been thinking about lately. About feminism, how men (especially in history) do only like 2-8% of the parenting (luckily not my amazing husband), solitude and finding the inspiration to fill and refill the inner well that one must have in order to create, the phenomenon of mothers ignoring themselves for twenty five years til their children are grown and gone only to discover they are still alive but forgot to live for themselves at ALL for the last two decades, launching a midlife identity crisis and painful letting-go that never had to actually be that hard had they only held on to the precious pieces of their SOUL that should never have been severed in the first place.

It's scary up there

And that is where art saves the day.

Art. Art is a healer. It is a savior. Art demonstrates the divine in us. It is the creator inside us. I believe it is the reflection of the Creator itself. It is spurred from the magic of imagination, it comes from our souls, it CAN NOT BE BOUGHT, it can not be replicated by another. It spotlights the essence of who we each are and how different we are. Art. Art has the power to save the most lost people, the most hopeless situations.

WHY?

I believe because art shines a light on the light of us. On the light of our true-est hearts. Once we access our inspiration in some way we can let it run through us and back out through whatever medium we choose. It is so good for us. I believe it keeps us young at heart, healthy, alive in the best ways. Especially if it is less selfish and somehow aimed at attempting to inspire and help others. If we allow the channel of our inner heart to let go and shine out to others we not only save and inspire ourselves but we have the power to save others. We can believe in ourselves when we didn't think it was possible before, & we can help others do the same. We can cultivate community and kindness and creativity in others through it.

California love doodles 2003

"My Favorite Places in California" notebook doodle around 2003.

Geez I guess I'm a California gal thru and thru

Here's where a thousand quotes from books I have read should be dropped. I just finished Anne Morrow Lindbergh's "Gift from the Sea". I had avoided it for years, thinking it would be trite or cute for some reason. But it hit home in so many ways. Here is a woman writing in the 1950's that manages to demonstrate and describe some of an artist and a mother and a woman's most important inner struggles. One of my favorites was about solitude. Letting go of solitude was one of my greatest fears of being a mother.

But now I know I haven't let go of it completely. I only have less of the solitude stuff. But I am so much better at managing my time these days! No more nights wasted having done nothing but sit in a dive bar, even though, DANG that is fun too once in a while and creates its own little niche in your soul of other people's stories, impromptu jukebox parties, etc. But because of what I have been through and what I am presently learning by being a mother I have SO. MUCH. ENDLESS. gratitude and thoughts and wonder pouring through my veins now that once I do harness a bit of extra time I am going to do more than I ever did two years ago! I truly can feel new things trying to be born out of me. Songs, drawings, art using natural resources, parties, furniture, birdhouses... SO MUCH is coming!

Coal Beautiere circa 08-09?

I feel like the most productive and inspired and open-minded artist in me has yet to come! I feel like being a new mama is somehow making me more of an artist than ever. I feel dedicated, motivated, ready to have and do and be it all. I want to defy the downers who told me that I will never be able to get anything done again. And I will prevail :) Luckily I have the right man to help me have that time to myself. Art is so great with the boy and with letting me take time for myself.

While I still have a babe that cannot walk or communicate it can be very difficult to find the time to do these things now, but I am starting where I can. He will finally entertain himself for bits and pieces of an hour and I can fit things in. I am taking the bits of moments I can here and there to go away for an hour or two and practice music, I signed on for a couple of shows (gulp...), I am setting up a little art space in my room and spending time in nature (easy to include Utah on these outings) cultivating ideas about how to incorporate the love of living so close to so much nature into my art. I can't wait to go to a woodcraft workshop. I want to make furniture and utilitarian art. There is a bloom of art in me growing.

I want to make roost boxes and houses for birds.

I want to write at least seven new songs.

I HAVE GOT to utilize the cold weather and my in-tune piano to put out the album that's been seven years coming!

And oddly, despite my lack of time, I feel it in my bones that all of this will come to pass. Shit, I might even start a business of some kind (I've got some ideas brewing). Thanks to my beautiful wild sweet little son I have the ambition and actual fuel to do more than I have ever done with my days before. A lot less of the dive bars, a lot more art. A lot less conversations on the phone, a lot more productive evenings. A lot less messing around, a lot more time management. Thank the stars that I haven't had to give up my tiny creative post in these western parts of the world, I'm just seeing from a much wider range these days.

I don't need to "make it" in any art world or get famous or get signed. I just want to be like those guys are in the the great American southern hemisphere, playing music on their back porches til they die.
Cultivating and honoring my good old fashioned soul.

Some of my humble little works. Warning, some dorky but very me-ish stuff ahead.