The MAN Festival Day 6 - Multi-Tasking Mother Artists

In a permanent state of multi-tasking, as mother artists we are often overwhelmed by the conflicting demands we feel from family and artistic lives. And each of these twin selves also contains its own conflicting needs and demands. Despite all these competing demands we continue to undertake creative work because if we didn`t we would be denying ourselves and depriving our children of an essential aspect of who we are.

Each feature in the MAN Festival has shown how these twin selves can also feed into each other augmenting and developing rather than dividing and destroying our parenting and artistic roles.  

As mother artists we live in an alternate time frame to the rest of the world. Everything takes longer despite the fact that you are moving faster than you have ever gone before. I am very drawn to Frank Partnoy's idea from Wait: The Useful Art of Procrastination, of  how we 'manage delay'  in order to expand time:

The best time managers are comfortable pausing for as long as necessary before they act, even in the face of the most pressing decisions. For good decision makers, time is more flexible than a metronome or atomic clock.

PAUSE AND ENJOY!

Viv in her Looking Glass project

In wrapping up this week with the BIG MAN, I have truly enjoyed spending some virtual time with each of the artists featured in the Festival and all the other artists I have come across in the process. What a rich and multi-dimensional experience! Ideas are coalescing and a Phd proposal is making its way onto paper to be submitted at a time somewhere in the future. Virtual presence is being reassesed so I too can participate in the magnificent community of artists of all disciplines who dance the weft and weave of motherhood and arts practice.

Thankyou to Jo and Lilly for providing a platform to connect, discuss and celebrate art, creativity and motherhood.

Bravery is…  accepting change

Imagination is… core to resilience

Generosity is…  allowing your self to expand

Viv juggling rehearsals for her Quiet Spirit film project

BIG Editors note:
As two mother artists we live all of it at once.  BIG was built in the sleep hours and habits of our littles. You cannot undo being an artist or a mother. You just are.  Scroll through the posts below to find a week of links to mother artists and projects inspired and true. There are many more coming. If you want to join the MAN party send us an email to info@bigkidmsagazine and we will do our best to position you in the mix of our next curated MAN Festival early next year. Here we extend our huge thanks to Vivienne Rogis who has done a wonderful job working within our immediate and madly responsive BIG process as guest editor. We look forward to welcoming you into the blogosphere Viv ;) 

The brand new issue (3) of BIG kids Magazine just been released called Game On! We have a feeling both you and your child just might love it! We also thought to point you Into The Dark in the hope you might like to CONTRIBUTE a little something side by side with your child. 

See you there, Jo and Lilly xx

The Mother Artist Network (MAN) is an initiative of Jo Pollitt and Lilly Blue and BIG Kids Magazine. This inaugural mini MAN Festival has been curated in collaboration with guest editor and mother artist extraordinaire Vivienne Rogis