Like I said last year around Halloween, I may not have gone to art school but being a mother has certainly filled that role. How could motherhood help me as an artist? Motherhood is beautiful but it is also messy, chaotic, and demanding. Art is all of those things as well. How do you balance two things that demand all of your attention? With love and grace, I suppose (one can only hope to do it that well.) Mothering is all-encompassing, all the time. This means that art-making happens in a focused and determined way. If I only have an hour this week I better make it count. It means that most of the "art-making" happens in the mind's eye. It means that I want my child to see me follow my passions, that her mother is her mother first and most importantly, but always her own person too.
But what does this have to do with art school? Being someone's mama and a creative person has made for this exciting mash up of two worlds. If I wasn't a mom, I would never make sculptural things like a paper maché cat head and a foam dinosaur costume. I never would have made movie accurate Harry Potter wands out of polymer clay, wood, and paint. I would never have made over 100 little felt toys that are sculptures in their own right. I would never craft miniature clothes, mini furniture, mini quilts. The point is, I am making things I thought were out of my wheelhouse. I am making things with materials and subjects I never would, trying new techniques and experimenting. I am being stretched in new directions and I am growning as an artist! How cool is that?
Anyway, here are this year's Halloween costumes. All made with paper mache, paper clay, and paint.
Okay, the moon was last minute. The clock was counting down and I had to do something I could make really fast!
And I even managed to have time to make a few Venus of Willendorf figures for my booth at the Viroqua Public Market!
I hope you had a spooky Halloween, got lots of candy, and had a meaningful Samhain.
