I have recently been reading interviews from different women, and there is always a question near the end of the interview that goes: I wish someone had told me___________________
about motherhood. I love reading the
different answers to this question, and the other day found myself thinking about what I might
put in that blank. And, are you ready
for this? I think I've decided:
I wish someone would have told me that taking care of a baby
would be the easy part of motherhood.
Learning/remembering how to take care of yourself once you become a
mother is the thing that takes some practice.
Deep, right? Haha. Well, it's true. I have been so pleasantly surprised at how natural it feels to meet the demands of a tiny person. I mean, yes, being a mother is hard. But not nearly as hard as I expected. Also, it's really awesome, which usually makes you forget that it's hard. But remembering that I need to take care of myself? That's hard. And easy to forget about. Sometimes I find myself looking down at my fingernails wondering who exactly is in charge of trimming those ragged things (it's me, by the way).
Something that makes me feel like I'm taking care of myself (besides cutting my nails on a regular basis) is making the time to paint. And the weirdest thing has been happening! I've found that being a mother makes me a better artist. And that being an artist makes me a better mother. Pretty tidy, huh? Shoot, I love symbiosis (is that considered symbiosis? I'll check later.).
I've been a painter without being a mom, and it seemed like I could never find a good groove. But now that I have small (but consistent!) windows to paint, I am enormously productive. And I've also tried mothering without making time for art. I get awfully restless.
We recently moved my studio into Gesso's old room (oh yes, he needs to be properly put to bed each night or else he goes and drools all over my couches), and we did some wall painting and shelf hanging. Since then, I have been painting like crazy!
I have piles of cloud paintings, and a growing pile of food paintings (which I have been calling my "snack paintings"), and they are taking over my studio.
I also buckled down and finally (finally!) created a website. It's super simple, but I'm really proud of it. I hope you hop over to take a look. I've also put a link on my sidebar (click the cloud painting, yo!).
I have some exciting things in the works to hopefully find new homes for all of these paintings. I am so not a business woman. At all. But I am trying to be brave and figure out how to make this work. Deep breath.
