Art as escape

Art was an escape. It called to me after I became a mother.

This was my friend’s response when I asked her out of pure frustration: how oh how does she juggle motherhood & art.

There’s a lot of literature on fathers who continue creative pursuits through their child-rearing season but I’ve struggled to find much from mothers that don’t fall dull or aren’t the mother goose version of their quotidian life.

Being smack dab at the beginning of mine (quotidian life, that is), my guess is it’s because mothers are too exhausted & frazzled to commit the time to their art. What a luxury it was. My brain literally cannot find the words for things right now. I talk, write, think in a jumble right now.

I still crave my creativity. Even in the middle of this exhaustion, this exhilaration. Right now that means monthly picture books, Christmas cards, letters to a pen pal, an environmental book club, starting a shade garden before the first frost, & coming up with a myriad of silly faces, noises, & games to get my little one to smile.

Maybe that’s why mothers have such good stories they share after their childbearing years — there’s a whole lot of inspiration when you’re just living your life.