Interview: Nīa MacKnight

Nīa MacKnight is a photographer and educator based in Tongva Territory (Los Angeles, California). When she became a single mother at 21, the worlds of art and photojournalism seemed at odds with the practical demands of parenthood. But raising a child ultimately renewed the importance of making time for art, and she focused her lens on intergenerational memory and the poetics of everyday life. Drawing from her Anishinaabe, Lakhóta, and Scottish ancestry, Nīa explores narratives of migration, healing, and transformation within the urban environment she calls home. With a background in photography, psychology, and education, she now teaches photography and graphic design to high school students while pursuing her own creative practice. Her photography has been commissioned for publications including the New York Times, Al Jazeera, Environmental Health News, and the New Yorker. We spoke to her in the midst of her recent exhibition, “How do your ancestors find you if you don't have a name?”

 
Cultural ReProducers: Could you describe your daughter in your own words?  Age, name, general temperament…
 
Nīa MacKnight: Elle is twelve, about to be thirteen. She’s very inquisitive, bold, a bit… mischievous. She has a lot of passion. She loves everything fiercely, whether it be animals, people… she has so much love for the world.
 
Cultural ReProducers: So when she was born, what kinds of expectations did you have about being an artist who's also a parent? And how did that square with the reality of it for you?
 
Nīa MacKnight: So I had my daughter when I was 21, and being a single parent at that time I felt I didn't have the energy to create anymore. Just trying to keep up with everything… I was depleted. I didn't see a place for me in the world of photography, specifically photojournalism. I gave so much of my physical energy working jobs that weren't creative, getting a degree in psychology - I was really focused on understanding my role beyond the arts.
 
When I started navigating the art world I noticed this lack of dialogue that included support for artists that are also caretakers. There’s this expectation that you're on your own. That individualism can be alienating. I’ve really had to think about how I'm supporting my work, how to carve that space for myself if it doesn't exist elsewhere. So I've had to take jobs outside of creative labor. And I've learned to really draw inspiration from daily life.
 

Hand of Light, Nīa MacKnight

When my daughter was maybe three or four, I have this very visceral memory: we were at our apartment,
around that magical hour where the light is filtering through everything – a little bit softer and golden. It had been a long day. I picked my daughter up from preschool, and we're finally home making our dinner. I look over and I see this very direct ray of light piercing through the curtain. And my daughter noticed it and put out her hands, and then I see in that moment, “what a beautifully composed image.” I grabbed my camera, worked really quickly, and was able to capture that moment. That particular memory is really a catalyst for the type of work I do. It reminded me that although there may not be space for you right now, continue to make work. Maybe there will be a space or a time where this work means something to someone else, but for now it means a lot to you.  




I don’t agree with this idea that you have to give up an art practice when you have a child. I saw in that moment that this everyday experience – my daughter’s really the source of inspiration and energy that fuels my work as an artist. How could I separate those worlds? I'm always thinking of how psychology and art intersect. I don't work as a therapist, but as a teacher, you know, you work many roles. I always think of art as a form of transformation and healing. What else could it be?
 
Cultural ReProducers:  I love that, and I totally agree. I think that for any parent, there's always this question of what kind of world our children are growing up in -- what we hope for the future. Does this transformative practice in your artmaking connect to that?

Nīa MacKnight: Yeah, thank you. I think that through experiences of caregiving - whether you're a parent, or a teacher, or taking care of your own parents - you’re giving your energy and often that makes you feel depleted. Right? So it becomes more and more important to hold space for yourself while you are caregiving for others. That could look like painting, that could look like going outside to take photos. That could just be staring outside the window and reflecting on a concept that is evolving, or a memory from years ago. Photography is this tool to turn that into a material form. That’s something that as a society we don't hold enough space to talk about: health and wellness… we’re not designed to produce at an industrial rate. If we're creating this life form, it’s a story that takes years and years to get right.
 
That’s where I hope my daughter, that the times she's navigating are different. Maybe we'll get to a place where we're evolved to hold more space for parents, in particular mothers, to heal. Financial support to navigate working and caretaking, and the way we treat elders. I hope that evolves by the time she's older. But you know, I think it's still really important for her to always hold space for herself. 

Future Ancestor, Nīa MacKnight

 
The medium of photography is immediate, and directly engaging with the world. I hope that my daughter, and my students … youth, that they continue to utilize this tool to engage with the environment. Engage with their own family histories. To look inward. To find your role in the outside world. How to expand on time as a cycle. According to traditional teachings, time is not linear. We play a critical role in the cycle of life. Every material object we create, that's a story. Each story has its own life force. And it keeps getting shared and taking on new forms, new interpretations. As storytellers, it’s a huge responsibility to make sure that that story is ready to be shared with the next person, and the next person after that, so the story is always living in time.
 
Cultural ReProducers: Who have been your role models in artist-parenting / parent-artisting?
 

Nīa MacKnight: I feel very fortunate that I grew up in a house where art was very much part of daily life. I think of my own mother. You know, our situations were different, but - despite having multiple children to take care of, and taking care of her parents - she still carved out time to make art. She sewed these little dolls and would often sell them at local fairs or boutiques, and that evolved into painting and drawing. Although she wasn't commercially successful then, she still carved out time to create. Now she's much more well-known, but I witnessed her struggles, and how she used art to carve out more spaces to be seen
 

Womb, Nīa MacKnight

Living here… LA is so sprawling and big - sometimes that can feel isolating. Being a really young mom, I thought I was the only one navigating all that. But out here in the South Bay area I've come to meet a lot of people that, although at first we didn't share that we had children, our art started this dialogue. As my daughter got older I met a lot of other artists:  Jenn Graves comes to mind, Carrie Dietz, JaNae Collins … those are just a few that come to mind. All working artists - whether they’re printmakers, painters, or actors - they’re playing an active role in their children's lives, in a very competitive urban environment such as Los Angeles.
 
Cultural ReProducers: Your work is also tied to family in a more expansive way – connecting you to traditions and stories of your ancestors. Could you say more about how that has shaped your photography?




 

Nīa MacKnight: Well, I come from mixed ancestry: I'm Lakhóta, Anishinaabe and Scottish, so both indigenous and settler histories. My childhood was very multiracial and also intertribal. All these different sources of knowledge really permeated everything. So within my work I'm always drawn to the contrast of energies: reflecting on the role of humanity within urban environments, which are so layered. Here in LA, I'm a guest on Tongva territory. These aren't my traditional homelands. I'm always drawn to people in the community that exemplify duality. Their stories truly show that these energies can coexist.
 

Child of Industry, Nīa MacKnight

Los Angeles can often seem very post-apocalyptic. There’s that relationship with the oil industry. My family lives right by a refinery. Cars everywhere, concrete. Thinking about assimilation, and in particular, my family's role within that in history, in the United States. My work really examines this duality between two worlds: the industrial and the natural; The material and the spiritual. I'm drawing from ancestral memories, and my role as both a witness and a participant, trying to harvest intimate moments in a landscape of colonial violence.
 
Right now I’m showing a specific series of photographs and a site-specific installation titled “How do your ancestors find you if you don't have a name?” I was thinking about last names, in this modern world, as a way of really carrying on a family's legacy. I thought also about my own government name and I was confronting feelings of shame, because there there are traditional Lakhóta ceremonies where people are given a name… as a way for your ancestors to meet you beyond the physical world. My aunt, who lives out on Standing Rock, shared with me that a lot of people don't have these names. It's not as common anymore.
 
Lakhóta society is very matriarchal. As I was digging and thinking about my relatives, I recognized this pattern of women not taking on their partner's name. Women have their own essence. Their role in society was very different than it is today. I really wanted to highlight how colonization, but also assimilation, is reflected in names. So really questioning, what is a name? I believe that your ancestors can find you no matter where you are, whatever name you have. They are always there with you.

 
 

Interview: Aram Han Sifuentes

For artist, writer, and curator Aram Han Sifuentes, needle and thread are a political tool, connecting the material labor of sewing with a social and performative practice to activate the cultural histories of immigrant communities. This approach was never clearer than in her recent solo exhibition at the Chicago Artists Coalition, where she chose to highlight the work of her mother, Younghye Han, an artist who set aside her painting practice for a steady job when the family moved to the US from South Korea more than two decades ago. Younghye returned to drawing and painting after the birth of Aram’s own daughter last year. Cultural ReProducers is pleased to share interviews with both artists.  You can find Aram’s interview with her mother here.

Aram Han Sifuentes’ work has been exhibited widely in the US and internationally, including recent projects for the Chung Young Yang Embroidery Museum (Seoul, South Korea), the Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago, IL) and the Elmhurst Art Museum (Elmhurst, IL). She the recipient of numerous awards, most recently including a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship and a public residency through the Chicago Cultural Center. Her current project, ​The Official Unofficial Voting Station: Voting for All Who Legally Can't, is a massive multi-site collaboration with artists and activists in fifteen cities across the US and Mexico, commissioned by Chicago’s Jane Addams Hull House Museum.  

Cultural ReProducers: Briefly describe your daughter in your own words.  

Aram Han Sifuentes: My daughter, Nara Han Sifuentes, is 15 months old. She is a beautiful Chicana Coreana or Mexorean aka multiculticutie. It’s been such a joy watching her grow and to figure herself and the world out. She does new things every day and I am just astounded and floored over and over again. Today she learned how to squeeze her bath toys and aim the water coming out of them at my face. She was very serious for the first year but lately she is so silly and playful. She often wakes up in the morning singing, waking us up with kisses, clapping, and asking for her favorite cartoon “Pororo”. She doesn’t say “umma” (mom) much but she says Pororo all the time. She also loves giving all her stuff toys kisses.

Younghye Han: My Mother's First Exhibition, installation view

CR: In the project Younghye Han: My Mother’s First Exhibition you present this beautifully complex cycle of intergenerational influence, starting with your mother as a young artist in Korea whose creative aspirations shifted in moving to the United States. There is a circling back through your own creative practice and the birth of your daughter. How did this project come together?


Aram: As a part of my Bolt Residency at Chicago Artist Coalition, I had an opportunity for a solo exhibition in the Summer of 2016. In 2015 after the birth of my daughter, my mom started drawing and painting again for the first time in 22 years. She used to be an artist in Korea and even ran her own art center. When we came to the United States in 1992, she started two drawings and one painting which never got completed. After our first year in the United States my parents took employment at a dry cleaners and later came to own their own, where my mom became and still works as the seamstress. They work 70 hour weeks so there is no time for anything else.

Younghye Han, Nara on a Pillow, 2016

But they recently had hired someone to help them out part time and my mom started to create
wonderful portraits of Nara at the cleaners. My mom lives in California, and Nara and I Facetime her every day. She was showing us these beautiful new drawings and paintings with such pride. I was thinking through what I wanted to do for my solo exhibition and it dawned on me one day that it would be so great if my mom could show her work. So I asked her if she wanted her own solo show. She didn’t answer me right away. She actually freaked out a bit. She told me the idea stressed her out, but then she agreed. When we moved to the United States, my mom only salvaged and brought over three paintings that she made in the 80s. I told her I wanted to exhibit these as well.

I had never forgotten about those two drawings and that one painting she started in our first year in the U.S. but never finished. Those actually sat in my room for a long time while I was growing up. I’d stare at them all the time, wondering when my mother would ever return to them. I asked her if she wanted to continue them but she told me she wasn’t interested. They weren’t her style anymore. So I asked her if I could complete them in some way and include them in the exhibition. She was excited by the idea and that’s also how they became included in the exhibition.

CR: You address questions of cultural identity in your artistic practice, examining family traditions as well as the assumptions and barriers you find there. This is an important part of the work of your husband, Roberto Sifuentes, as well. How does this process of questioning, celebrating, and re-articulating spill over into the messy business of parenting, or family in general?

Aram: Nara has already lived one month of her life in Korea and one month of her life in Mexico! We also speak to Nara in English, Korean, and Spanish. I usually speak to her in Korean, and Roberto in English. Then we both mix in Spanish whenever we feel like it. I speak Spanish pretty badly and studied a lot of Portuguese in college so I’m always making words up. Roberto also attempts to speak Korean and then mixes Spanish into it all the time. So it never makes sense. So at home, we are definitely on our way into creating a hybrid language called Konglishñol. But we don’t ever understand what each other is saying. We also do this with food. We are working on a cook book called Korean Today, Mexican Tomorrow because I’ll cook Korean for dinner then the next morning Roberto likes to turn the leftovers into something Mexican. It transitions amazingly well. I think this is the way we both approach our cultural identities- we revere and love them but then really enjoy messing and riffing off of them. And we parent in this way. I Tiger Mom when I want to but then let her eat a bunch of chocolate and not brush her teeth at night when I feel like it.

Nara revisits artist William Pope L.'s performance, The Great White Way.

CR: So what was your process like for returning to a creative practice after having a newborn? What has been the most challenging and most rewarding, at this stage in things?
 
Aram: I had two exhibitions and performances back to back in different states three weeks after her birth. It was hard. I’ve been incredibly busy this past 15 months with amazing opportunities. I must say I have been much more active in my career than I was before Nara was born. Nara and my career taking momentum happened at the same time. It definitely hasn’t been easy. As Nara gets older, she gets more and more active, which means I get to do much less work while she’s awake. She slams her hands on my keyboard when my computer is open and there is no way I can do any hand sewing while she’s around. She would definitely grab for the needle. She isn’t much of napper but luckily sleeps well at night (8 hours). So the biggest challenge for me right now is that I can only work when she is sleeping, which also means I sleep a lot less. I’m one of those people who needs 10 hours of sleep a night so this has been really hard for me. The most rewarding is that it’s been fun for my career to grow at the same time as Nara. I try to take her to everything and she gets to witness it and be a part of it all. In this way, she sees different parts of the world and gets to meet all sorts of exciting people. I’m very lucky as well that Roberto is really supportive and takes care of Nara often while I install an exhibition or leave for a week to do a visiting artist gig, and etc.

CR: How has becoming a mother affected your relationship with the art world? In imagining an ideal creative community, what alternative structures or attitude shifts would be part of that?
 
Aram: I think overall I’ve become bolder in the world. I have more battles to fight and things feel more urgent and pressing because I don’t want things just to change for me, but I need them to change for my daughter. My relationship with the art world is the same. The art world needs more people of color and to represent us in all our complexities.

Official Unofficial Voting Station's Vox Pop: The Disco Party in collaboration
with Lise Haller Baggesen and Soundscapes by DJ Sadie Rock

 CR: Can you talk about what you’re working on now, and what’s on the horizon?

Official Unofficial Voting Station in Tijuana by collaborators Cecilia Aguilar
Castillo and Erick Fernández Saldaña

Aram: I currently have a solo exhibition at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum called The Official Unofficial Voting Station: Voting for All Who Legally Can’t. During this polarizing election season, I am working with 15 artists and radical thinkers all over the United States and in Mexico to create voting stations that are open to all, but particularly for the disenfranchised. There are at least 106 million people who live in the United States and its territories who are disenfranchised. These groups include: youth, non-citizens, incarcerated, ex-felons (depending on the state), residents of U.S. territories, and those without proper IDs (also, depending on the state). To engage the various communities of the disenfranchised, all of these stations take on different form depending on the collaborator. They range from participatory public artworks to radical performances to pedagogical tools. For example, my collaborators in Mexico City, Tijuana, and Acapulco, Cecilia Aguilar Castillo and Erick Fernández Saldaña, created a station where participants voted with fake blood then drilled screws and Mexican flags into styrofoam heads of Trump and Hillary to vote against them. On November 8th we will have a big public program at the Hull-House from 1-5pm where DJ Sadie Rock will be playing music, and Yvette Mayorga and I will be facilitating a workshop where the public helps us to build a piñata wall. When the wall is complete, the public is invited to help bash it. That evening, from 6-7pm on Nov. 8th, Roberto Sifuentes, DJ Sadie Rock, and I will be performing and asking the public to fill out ballots at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. All the ballots come from and are counted at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum. After Nov. 8th the installation at the Hull-House then turns into a suggestion station and is on exhibit until the end of April.

After this project, I’m interested in gestures of mass voting that can happen across borders. I will be focusing on doing Official Unofficial Voting Stations in the United States for Korea’s 2017 Presidential Elections and Mexico’s 2018 Presidential Elections.

Nara casting her ballot at the Official Unofficial Voting Station

Interview With My Mother, Younghye Han

Younghye Han received her BFA in Traditional Ink Painting from Ewha Woman’s University and ran her own painting and drawing academy for children for five years in Seoul, South Korea.  She has been working as a seamstress and running Mainz Dry Cleaners in Manteca, CA with her husband for more than 20 years. She recently had her first exhibition at the Chicago Artists Coalition in collaboration with her daughter, Aram Han Sifuentes, an artist who combines fiber art with social practice to engage labor, cultural history, and immigrant communities. Cultural ReProducers is honored to present conversations with both artists, a testament to the intergenerational creative impact of mothers, daughters, and granddaughters. 

You can find our interview with Aram Han Sifuentes here. The interview below was conducted as part of the exhibition Younghye Han: My Mother’s First Exhibition, and begins with an introduction Aram wrote for the show: 

Younghye Han, Nara on a Pillow, 2016

My family immigrated to the United States in 1992. A trained artist in Korea, Younghye Han left that behind and has spent the last 24 years, working 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, as a seamstress and running her own dry cleaning business in Manteca, California. It has been 24 years since her last painting. Inspired by the birth of her first granddaughter in 2015, she began drawing and painting again. This is my mother’s first exhibition. It features her works made in Korea, her most recent pieces, and my responses to her last unfinished drawings made in the first year we immigrated to the United States. 

These are the questions I’ve asked my mother. Some of these are questions I’ve asked again and again throughout my life and the answers have changed and evolved throughout the years, further complicating my mother’s story. Some of these are questions I’ve never had the courage to ask her before. This interview was translated from Korean.  

Aram: How did you decide to become an artist?

Younghye: When I was seven or eight years old, I found out about an art contest at my elementary school. I went home and told my sister who yelled at me and told me to get money from our parents to apply. So I was crying when I asked my parents. They gave me the money and I went to school after hours to apply. This was my first time I participated in an art contest but I won a big prize. From then on I applied every year and continued to win big prizes. Later on I asked my sister why she yelled at me to apply. She said that she would see me draw and I didn’t draw like other kids my age. They would draw stick figures but I wouldn’t. She said I drew high heels particularly well and saw that I had talent. My sister wanted to study theater and our parents were opposed to it and didn’t let her pursue it. Then in high school our family went bankrupt and I wanted to go to college. I knew that artists wouldn’t be able to make much money straight out of school. So I was deciding whether or not to go into art or to go into nursing. Even though it would be hard, I decided to go into art. So I took the tests and got into art schools. My mother wished I wouldn’t pass. She didn’t even believe it when I passed the tests.

Aram: Why did you decide to move our family to the United States?
 
Younghye: Even though your father and I received our education from very good universities, our English wasn’t very good. So we thought that you and your sister could do anything if you knew English well. This is why we decided to move to the U.S.

Aram: What type of job did you think you would work in the U.S?
 
Younghye: I knew it would be difficult. But I just wanted you and your sister to learn English. Then you both would be able to do anything and get any type of good paying job. I didn’t think about myself so I didn’t know what type of work I would do. I just thought about your future. My parents weren’t able to help me so I wanted to make sure that I could help you both in any way.

Aram: You didn’t think about it?
 
Younghye: I thought that if other people could do find work and make it in the U.S., then I could do it too.

Younghye Han, Nara Sitting, 2016

Aram: Why a dry cleaners?
 
Younghye: When we came here, it seemed that the only jobs available to us were to run a liquor
store, ice cream shop, or dry cleaners. We didn’t want to work at a liquor store because during this time the LA riots were happening and they were targeted so we decided not to go that route. And I can do anything with my hands. I knew how to sew already and thought that working at a dry cleaners would be easier.

Aram: Did you think you would be able to practice art here?
 
Younghye: I knew that I would make art again at some point in my life before I die. It was too hard working at the cleaners. I gave up even though my mind was there and I thought about it often. But when I saw Nara, I started to make art again because I felt so inspired.

Aram: How did you feel about me becoming an artist?
 
Younghye: Now I feel happy about it. At first I was so worried. It is not an easy job and there is no stability. I know since I was an artist. It was so hard for me so I didn’t want that for you. It is too hard. Now that I have worked too hard for many years, I’ve lost my happiness. While raising you two and working so hard, my life and happiness has become lost. Now I am thankful toward you. Through you I was able to find my art again. You Facetime me every day so I can see Nara and you talk to me in Korean. I always thought that if you are kind, then life will be good to you. I gave up on this but this has come to me suddenly.

Aram Han Sifuentes, Mom’s Drawings of Roses (1992) Encased, 2016, Mulberry paper and wax

Events: Multimedia Time Machine, Family + Friends

Multimedia Time Machine
Saturday, October 22, 2016
10 AM - 12 PM
Gallery 400
400 S Peoria Street, Chicago

For a lot of us, 'family' events are a whole lot more interesting when they're not designed just for children. That's why Cultural ReProducers is partnering with Gallery 400 to present Multimedia Time Machine, a truly intergenerational workshop and live video performance next Saturday, October 22nd. Bring your kids, your parents, your college students, and yourself for a collaborative live animation with artists and musicians Ben LaMar, Selina Trepp, and Christa Donner. We'll transform Gallery 400 into a multimedia time machine using electronic and acoustic sound, overhead projectors, shadow forms, and transparent materials to create layers of past and the future. The resulting projection and soundtrack will be documented as a realtime video collaboration.

Families and Friends Matinee Series
Sunday, Oct. 23rd, Nov. 20th, and Dec. 17th 
12 PM - 2 PM

Township

2200 North California Ave, Chicago

If you'd rather enjoy live music than make it yourself, check out Township's live concert series for all ages, continuing its second season thanks to musician, artist, and father Thomas Comerford, who started organizing the series for Township in the Spring. Families and Friends Matinee Series kicks off for Fall on Sunday, October 23rd, with the trancey, visual electronica of Spectralina and openers Son Monarcas, who combine Mexican roots with South American cumbia and tango. Bonus: you can order some excellent food from the Township kitchen if kids get hungry between sets. I'm pretty sure the cover is still $10 per family. Here's their full Fall lineup:

10/23, #7: Spectralina + Son Monarcas, noon
11/20, #8: Glass Mountain + Girls of the Golden West, noon
12/17, #9: Tselanie Townsend + Wes Hollywood, noon

Interview: Judith Brotman

Judith and Marcia Brotman, 2014

This Mother's Day we're putting a twist on the theme of artmaking and family life. Judith Brotman is not a parent herself. Since her mother's health issues took hold more than fifteen years ago, Judith has overseen her care on many levels. This deep and often challenging commitment has played a profound role in Judith's creative and career choices ever since.

Judith Brotman is an artist and educator from Chicago. Her work includes mixed media installations and theatrical immersive environments which occupy a space between sculpture and drawing. More recent work incorporates language/text-based conceptual projects which are also meditations on the possibility of transformation. She has exhibited extensively in Chicago & throughout the US, including exhibitions at Threewalls, Chicago Cultural Center, Hyde Park Art Center, Gallery 400, Illinois State Museum, The Bike Room, INOVA, the DeVos Art Museum, Hampshire College, The Smart Museum of Art, SOFA Chicago, The Society of Arts & Crafts, Boston, & The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. We are honored to share this conversation with her here.

CR: First, tell us a little bit about your mother.

Judith: My mother’s name is Marcia Brotman.  She is 94 and lives in an assisted living facility.  She grew up in Brooklyn, and graduated as a Spanish major from Brooklyn College.  She worked as a translator in an export company until she married and moved to Chicago. My mother was the youngest of seven children, growing up in a family of very little means; her most prized possession was a complete set of Dickens bought for her when she was a teenager by one of her brothers. My mother is a tougher cookie than she ever admitted in her younger years; she’s also very smart and has an astonishing sense of humor. 

studio shot, work-in-progress, 2015

CR: How has your involvement in your mother's care impacted your career choices and your relationship to the art community?

Judith: Although I don’t have children, I suspect that there are parallels in barriers encountered by parents in the arts and by those of us caring for adult family members.  A great deal of what has troubled me has been attitude. I have been taking care of my mother for close to 16 years, and the first thing I want to mention is that the art community is considerably kinder and gentler than it once was.  There was a time when I felt that any mention of my taking care of my mother was not welcome in the conversation.  It was very painful, but also made me quite angry that I was expected to compartmentalize this portion of my life and separate it out from the rest.  I felt things starting to shift, and for the better, about five years ago.  I applaud Cultural ReProducers for all their efforts to educate the art community.  I think it’s the same “education”:  recognizing that artists’ lives are complex.  Since we tend to ruminate on life’s toughest questions, it seems obvious that we would be living full, complex, and complicated lives. 


CR: What has your process been like in negotiating a balance between studio practice, day job, and caring for your mother? How has this system evolved as her/your situations have changed?

Judith: Illness and issues of aging do not necessarily progress in a straight line; actually the opposite is true.  There have been times when my mother’s care has occupied virtually all of my time and other times where it has been much more manageable.  It’s been an enormous challenge that has required continual recalibration.  I have told myself that I can juggle studio, teaching, and caregiving, and I have.   However, I know there’s statistical evidence that being a caregiver for someone who is ill has a 50% increased mortality rate regardless of age.  The stress component isn’t small.   I’ve never missed a class, postponed an exhibition, or neglected my mother’s healthcare, but I’ve sometimes felt overwhelmed from juggling so many eggs.

'Golems, Flying Machines, and Transformations' (detail),  2012

CR: How has this ongoing relationship with your mother and institutional care shaped your approach to your studio practice, or the work itself?


Judith: My studio work has always been a reflection of my interest in relationships (typically complicated ones) and in how we come know another person.   This interest preceded being a caregiver for my mother.  My sculpture/installation work has never been a direct response to my time with her, but every once in a while I can sense the impact.  I had been a pre-med student before going to art school, and that interest (in things medical and in the body) had always been an influence.  I do believe that this fast forwarded since participating in my mother’s health care.  There were a couple of years during which I accompanied her to endless medical tests.  For a time, I looked more at medical imaging than at artwork.  I’ve been repeatedly awed by how fragile and resilient the human body, even an elderly one, can be; as a result, in the past decade my work seems to have grown increasingly more “fragile-but-still-standing.”   The use of stitching in my work, which has been present for many years, has taken on more and more of a surgical feel.  I doubt any of this is a coincidence although it was only in hindsight that I made these connections.
   
For the past two years, I’ve been taking pictures of my mother and me almost every time I visit.  Typically these are a reflection of us in her bureau mirror.  What started as a way to give us a shared activity has not only enriched our time together but has also turned into documentation of our relationship.  Claudine Isé and I are planning an exhibition around this work to be shown at Woman Made Gallery; this is predicated on funding to make it happen.   It has been a lovely discovery to realize that my studio interest in oddball love stories and moments of potential transformation are really at the heart of these images.

Untitled, (altered book page), 2014

CR: If you could imagine a fantasy scenario, what sorts of alternative structures might make that world more inclusive or supportive for artists who find themselves in a similar situation?

Judith: I think the ideal scenario here might be even more complicated than for parents in the arts.   The medical emergencies and crises come randomly and at any time of the day or night.  Compassion from others helps a lot.  I can’t begin to say how much I appreciate it when people ask me directly about how I and/or my mom are doing.  This happens far more now than in years past. On the other hand, much of the advice/commentary I’ve received has been extremely unwelcome.  This isn’t an art community complaint, it’s global.  I remember someone recommending I let my mother die when she was still very much alive, and I’ve also received my share of New Age commentary indicating that what I’m experiencing is a result of unaddressed childhood issues.  I’m hard pressed to say how unhelpful these (and other) comments have been during the most difficult times.

My fantasy scenario involves how the elderly are treated.  From the time my mother began to lose her hearing, long before she had dementia, she was no longer taken seriously.  At this point, virtually every change in her is assumed to be her dementia progressing.  As a result, I often feel as if I need to watch her closely as medical issues are often missed and overlooked.   I have also caught (what feels like) 1,039,038 medical mistakes in the past fifteen years--everything from pharmacy to physician to hospital errors.   Many of them have been serious in nature. It is a fact of life that people need advocates when they are elderly and/or require a great deal of medical care.  In my fantasy world, I could blink (often) and it wouldn’t matter.  As it stands, I can’t ever fall asleep at the job.

Marcia and Judith Brotman, circa 1960

I want to end with something that will likely be unexpected even (especially?) to my closest
friends.  These years of caregiving, admittedly very tough, have also impacted me in ways I wouldn’t change.  I committed to something I truly wanted to do, and I think our commitments are always life affirming.   Given a re-do opportunity, I would likely do most of what I’ve done all over again---give or take a tweak here and there.  I’ve heard many parents talk about a shift in world-view once they’ve had their first child.  I suspect it is, in part, related to putting someone else’s needs ahead of your own. For me a greater sense of conviction, strength, and self-awareness have resulted.  I do not refer to self-sacrifice, but rather to a heartfelt commitment.  It certainly wasn’t why I’ve done this, but the internal changes have been a lovely (and unexpected) perk.  There have also been many astonishing conversations and shared experiences with my mother.  Admittedly some have been as tough as any I’ve ever encountered, but others have been filled with grace.  Even now, with my mother’s dementia fairly advanced, we share some incredibly intimate conversations.  At this point, we know each other so well that our conversations have the capacity to transcend all the perceived obstacles.

Cultural ReProducers Event Series

It's official -- Cultural ReProducers has been awarded a grant from the Propeller Fund to support a series of four exciting art events at art spaces throughout Chicago in 2014!

 

Raising children who value and engage with the arts is an act that fosters creative thinking, shapes public dialogue, and has long term impacts on culture as a whole. Despite this, both young children and parents are usually left out of the discourse of the art world because of how its institutions structure the possibility of participation.

Challenges include the hours of typical art openings and lectures, which typically fall during the hours that disrupt the evening dinner/bedtime ritual for many families, and often requires coordinating paid childcare. For those who choose to bring young children along, it can be challenging to truly converse or participate (kids are understandably fussy in a room full of loud adults and things they can't touch).

The Cultural ReProducers Event Series is a simple project that allows parents with small children participate more actively in the art community at large. We will host events at four different art venues throughout the city on Saturday mornings, during hours that make it possible for most families with small children to attend. 

We're working with each venue to program a compelling lecture, performance, or other event in conjunction with exhibitions on view.

Unlike the average art event, free on-site childcare will be provided  in a nearby room throughout the program, with creative activities linked to the event their parents are attending. There will be a limit of 18 children in the childcare area at each venue (you can pre-register to ensure your spot) but parents are also free to keep their kids with them. And of course non-parents are also welcome. Each event is followed by an informal all-ages reception with light refreshments, allowing for the possibility of dialogue, connection, and tasty snacks.

Our goal is twofold: to give parents and their kids the chance to participate as critical members of the arts community, and also to inspire cultural institutions to better serve artists and audiences, providing positive models for future programming.  

 If you have ideas about venues or events you'd like to see us partner with in the future, please be in touch! You can follow posts about upcoming and past events in the series HERE and if you're an institution working to make events more accessible to artist-parents, download the Cultural ReProducers Event Guidelines.