Making It: the Artist-Parent Index

This summer we're pleased to partner with Temporary Art Review to share the work of cultural workers raising kids with a broader audience. Temporary Art Review is an international platform for contemporary art criticism that focuses on alternative spaces and critical exchange among disparate art communities. They're profiling projects that support the work of artist-parents, and we suggested the Artist-Parent Index, an evolving database of artists making work about their experience as parents: 

Address: Virginia, USA
Contact: Sarah Irvin
Email: info (at) artistparentindex.com
Website: www.artistparentindex.com

How is the project operated?
 The Artist Parent Index is an artist-run project.
 

How long has it been in existence? 
The website launched in January, 2016.

What was your motivation?
 I created the Index to advance the discourse on parenthood in the visual arts through a topically searchable database. I wanted to provide a way for people to easily find artists creating work about their experiences as parents.

Number of organizers/responsible persons of the project:
 I run the project independently now, but I had a work study student, Michelle Jose, through George Mason University for the first 6 months.

How are programs funded? 
I am personally funding the project, but Michelle’s temporary position was funded through the Work Study program at Mason.

Who is responsible for the programming?
 Currently, just me (Sarah Irvin).

Number and average duration of exhibitions/events per year: The site is a continually growing database of artists, exhibitions and organizations. Right now, there are over 100 entries and I am constantly adding more.

Do you accept proposals/submissions?
 Yes, the index is open to include any artist creating auto-ethnographic work about parenthood. You can submit to info (at) artistparentindex.com or through our submissions page.

What is your artistic/curatorial approach?
 My approach is thematic, focusing on visual artists
creating work on parenthood. My goal is to create an exhaustive resource of artists and exhibitions focusing on parenthood as well as the organizations supporting these artists. I think of it as an inclusive global map of artistic activity on this theme. Each entry has associated search terms including medium, topic and location. So, if you search using a topic such as “breastfeeding,” a list of artists making work about breastfeeding is generated. The entries themselves mainly serve to get you to the artists’ websites based on your search terms. There is also an interactive map that allows you to search based on location.

What’s working? What’s not working?
 I’ve gotten a great response to the site so far. I’m pleasantly surprised by how many submissions have come in, and some curators have mentioned that they used the site for research. I’ve also received emails from artists interested in making work about parenthood, so connecting with them has been exciting. My main problem is that I have so much

information to add and I am working on this project alone right now. It is exciting though, that there is so much work being made about parenthood. Its a good problem to have.

What kind of role do you hope to play in your local art scene or community? 
My hope is that this is a research tool for artists, curators, and educators. There is a growing global community of artists creating work about parenthood, and I want the site to provide these artists with exposure and exhibition opportunities. 

What idea are you most excited about for the future? 
I like the idea of having so many entries that visitors can’t see the site’s searchable map anymore because it is completely covered in pins.

Making It: The Hown's Den

This summer we're pleased to partner with Temporary Art Review to share the work of cultural workers raising kids with a broader audience. Temporary Art Review is an international platform for contemporary art criticism that focuses on alternative spaces and critical exchange among disparate art communities. They're profiling projects that support the work of artist-parents, and we suggested the Hown's Den, a nomadic and domestic exhibition space where artists are invited to transform the living spaces of its three inhabitants:

Amy Kligman, "Interruptions"

The Hown's Den
Current Address: 63 Meade St. Buckhannon, WV 26201
Contact: Crystal Ann Brown
Email: crystal@thehownsden.com
Website: www.thehownsden.com
Open Hours: by appointment or at a scheduled event

How is the project operated?
 The Hown’s Den is not officially a non-profit but we would like to be some day.

How long has it been in existence? 
Almost 3 years, our fist official show was January 23, 2014.

What was your motivation?
 I wanted to experiment with an art environment that was family friendly and non-exclusive and to play around with a non-traditional art venue. At the time my family had just relocated from Athens, Ohio to Kansas City, Kansas. My partner and I were fresh out of graduate school and I was at home most of the time with our then 1-year-old while my partner worked. Faced with this new community and my role as a stay-at-home caregiver I craved inclusion into our new art scene and thought what better way to get involved in the community than to invite artists and people into our home for an art experiment. Now we have been happily experimenting in Kansas, Missouri, and West Virginia ever since.

Caitlin Horsman, "_Place_Plateau"

Number of organizers/responsible persons of the project: 1-3. I usually promote and organize on my own with the occasional help from my partner, but I am always working with the artist(s) installing their work depending on their individual needs.

How are programs funded? 
In the past we have had fundraisers like silent auctions to help fund the travel of artists coming to install work, but we are still working out other avenues of funding for the project as a whole. Currently, we are unable to pay artists for their involvement, but I hope to change that in the future.

Who is responsible for the programming? 
Myself (Crystal Ann Brown) and the artists(s) involved.

Number and average duration of exhibitions/events per year.
In the past there has been one exhibition every few months, however in our current location we are limited in what we can have installed in the space, so we have started a miniature installation project titled *not to scale that will exhibit multiple shows/installations seasonally.

What kind of events are usually organized?
 We mainly host art exhibitions, but we have hosted a backyard film festival and artist talks. We are currently looking at experimenting with lectures and presentations that compliment the miniature series *not to scale, and we are always open to proposals for other events from artists.

How is your programming determined?
 We move pretty organically, I try to gauge what my family can handle considering we live with the work and then coordinate programing from there.

Do you accept proposals/submissions?
 We do not have an official application process but I will look at proposals sent to the email addresses listed above.

Casey Whittier, "Translations and the Memory of Things"

What is your artistic/curatorial approach?
 I try to work with artists that are willing to experiment with a nontraditional art venue, while keeping in mind that the artwork will live with us and be regularly exposed to young children. I look for work that engages domestic architecture and invites imagination.

What’s working? What’s not working? 
I have found that having events on Saturdays between 11-3 works the best for families including my family. This is important because we aim to be more family friendly. I did not always do that and even now it’s hard to hold openings during that time because other art events like art walks are held in the evenings usually on a Thursday or Friday evening, which we try to piggyback on to increase audience turnout.

Having the artist(s) here for the opening has always worked well, the atmosphere allows for a more casual and honest dialogue between the artist and audience.

Creating an environment where the artwork is more integrated into the domestic setting allows for a more intimate reaction or response to the work, which is always a good thing.

In the past, artist presentations, lectures, and film screenings have not worked as well in comparison to art exhibitions, which I attribute to my focus being torn between the needs of my child and that of the presenter or film. That being said, I am interested in trying to have an in-house babysitter for nights when we will have presentations and screenings.

Cory Imig, "Linear Spaces"

What kind of role do you hope to play in your local art scene or community? 
We move around a lot because of our career paths and due to that it seems that we are moving from one community to the next. Within each community I try to engage the neighborhood that we live in. I invite neighbors to events and try to encourage people to look at art in an environment that might be outside of their comfort zone. We are use to looking at work in institutions, but being invited into the intimate space of a stranger’s home can be uncomfortable for some. It is important for us to offer an alternative space to engage in and respond to art. I also hope to perpetuate family inclusivity in the arts by engaging the domestic space as a place to look at and discuss art.

What idea are you most excited about for the future?
 I’m really looking forward to the miniature installation series *not to scale. This series was created out of not knowing how to continue on with The Hown’s Den once we moved to our current location in Buckhannon, West Virginia. We are renting and are very limited in what we can and can’t do to the interior of the home so as a solution I am building miniature mockups of rooms in our home, that I then mail out to the artist. Once the artist receives the miniature they are free to do whatever they want with the room. There are limitless possibilities for installation. Once the work is complete the artist will send the miniature back and we will hang it from the ceiling in the room it was intended to be a miniature of. We will host an opening at The Hown’s Den for our local community, but will also have a digital opening for more intimate photos of the miniatures. I am currently pairing up 2-3 artists to exhibit their miniatures at the same time, because I love the idea of bringing artists together and seeing the dialogue between art works unfold.

Dawlene-Jane Oni-Eseleh, "Inside Voices"

Making It: Aviatrix Atelier, Berlin

Making It profiles cultural producers creating the systems of support they need in the art community. The events, spaces, and other projects here support the work of professional artists while also being accessible to families.

kids take over the child-height mezzanine gallery overlooking Aviatrix's café

Just down the street from Berlin’s  Tempelhofer Park - an expansive public part that was once the city's main airport - it might be easy to pass by the modest Aviatrix Atelier without knowing what's brewing inside. Its name invoking the adventurous spirit of female pilots, Aviatrix is a vibrant little social club, an evolving all-ages studio, gallery, and café organized by and for creative parents and their families, as well as the local community.

When designer and artist Renata

flexible workspace during the week = gallery + event space on the weekend

Faccenda first became a mother, she realized that bringing her baby into a typical shared studio cooperative just wasn’t going to work. Instead, she joined forces with other mother-artists in the city to make something new. After some early attempts at configuring child-friendly collaborative spaces with others she met Sarah Salters, a clothing designer and teacher who shared her vision for an all-ages studio with space for work, play, and public events. The duo secured a multi-room storefront space in the Neuköln neighborhood, and Aviatrix Atelier was born.

Aviatrix operates in so many ways it’s a little hard to keep track sometimes. On weekdays, its core group of parents share a dedicated studio in the back, while up front a high-ceilinged room equipped with wide tables, lamps, and wifi is rented out as co-working space. On weekends, its custom-built furniture (designed by Renata herself) folds up and away to serve as a pop-up gallery for all-ages exhibitions, film screenings, performances, and dance parties with great musicians and DJs. You enter all this through an adjacent café that doubles as a sort of social club for the creative community, featuring simple but
tasty food and drink and a small boutique selling the creative work of Aviatrix collaborators.

children emerge from the mezzanine gallery over the café during an exhibition

I felt lucky to experience the magic of this place during a solo show of my work there this fall. It felt even luckier to get to share it with my four-year-old daughter. To be sure, Aviatrix is a pretty cool place for adults to hang out, but Renata and Sarah are also deeply invested in the creativity of children: all exhibiting artists are asked to lead low-cost workshops for kids, part of the atelier's multifaceted children's studio programming. A kid-height mezzanine gallery built over the coffeeshop is the perfect space for young creatives to showcase their art for the public, curate their own exhibitions, or (between exhibitions) just contribute to the washable graffiti covering the mini-gallery’s ceiling and windows, while keeping an eye on their parents in the café below.

Berlin is a pretty special city in its approach to integrating family life into the larger culture: childcare is affordable for all, playgrounds double as sculpture parks, and there's an amazing array of “Eltern-Kind-Cafés,” relaxed coffeeshops and restaurants that include built-in sandboxes, toys, or indoor slides, and even playgrounds with adjacent beer gardens (a concept we can only fantasize about in the US).  Still, what Aviatrix offers is unique. Billed as "Berlin's only kid-friendly atelier,"  it’s not just for families, but truly supports artists of all ages. For more photos, videos, and news about events past and present, check out Aviatrix's Facebook feed and explore their website for more information.

Balloons - Tartaruga Feliz Solo Show from Tartaruga Feliz on Vimeo.

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Christa Donner reimagines the human / animal body through a range of media including large-scale drawing, printmaking, digital animation, and small-press publication. Her process often incorporates public projects and collaborations around narratives of bodily experience. Her work is exhibited internationally, including projects for the Museum Bellerive (Zurich, Switzerland); the Horst-Janssen Museum (Oldenberg, Germany); Kravets-Wehby Gallery (New York, USA); BankART NYK (Yokohama, Japan); Chiaki Kamikawa Contemporary Art (Paphos, Cyprus); the ANTI Festival of Contemporary Art (Kuopio, Finland); and the Centro Columbo Americano (Medellin, Colombia).

Interview: Jill Miller

artist's rendering of 'the Getaway Van,' part of a new project by artists Jill Miller and Marianna Taylor.. a

Jill Miller is a visual artist who creates socially engaged art works centered on maternal practices and creativity. She has searched for Bigfoot in the Sierra Nevada, inserted herself into the art historical work of John Baldessari, engaged homeschooling as a lens for artistic production, and launched The Milk Truck, an eye-popping emergency vehicle for breastfeeding mothers, in Pittsburgh, PA. This year the Milk Truck gets a makeover as part of ArtReach Studios, a reinvention of the artist residency program created in collaboration with writer Marianna Taylor.

ArtReach is a radical revision of the artist residency that supports the creative work work of families, who are often excluded from typical residency opportunities. The project is fully mobile, incorporating both a vintage camper and the former Milk Truck, both fully outfitted with custom cabinetry, workspace, tools and materials. The project offers two innovative programs: a Family-in-Residence initiative fostering projects by artist-families working collaboratively with local neighborhoods, and the Getaway Van, offering 3-5 day micro-residencies for artists who are primary caregivers. ArtReach offers a level of support previously unheard-of, working with each artist to coordinate meals and childcare or eldercare so that residents can focus on their creative work. Needless to say, we’re pretty excited about this new project, and had plenty of questions for Jill about ArtReach, her life and work.

Body Configurations from the "Homeschooled" series

Cultural ReProducers: First off, could you briefly describe your kids in your own words?

Jill Miller: Paxton, age 9, intense, brilliant, a better artist than I! Argo, age 5, incredible sense of humor and obsessed with sharks and other water animals. We gave him the right name.

CR: Your work has playfully engaged family life since your kids were very young. Who have been your role models for artist-parenting/parent artisting, or more broadly the intersection of art and everyday life?

Jill: I have been most influenced by feminist artists, especially groups like Mother Art, who made art about motherhood when that was not popular in the feminist art circles. I’m also influenced by Mary Kelly, who was my mentor in graduate school. And of course Mierle Ukeles, who was engaging in social practices before we had a name for it.

The Milk Truck mobile breastfeeding unit (top image)
in-progress view of its transformation for ArtReach residency (bottom)

CR: The Milk Truck tackled issues of harassment and access for nursing mothers. Your newest project, ArtReach, reframes the format of the traditional artist residency – something artists often feel is out of their grasp once they become parents - to create a program supporting the work of artists who are also caregivers. How did this project come about?

Jill: The true germination happened when my first child was born, just two years after I finished my MFA. I was exhibiting regularly until he was born. He was such an intense little human that I had to say no to a lot of opportunities that came up, and it became clear to me that the traditional model for an art career (travel, residencies) wasn’t going to work. Years later, when I met Marianna Taylor, who is my collaborator on this project, we started having conversations about motherhood and creative practices. She has an MFA in creative writing and an intense first child, so we connected over that. We talked for years about wanting other mothers to have a space for their work in a way that we didn’t.

CR: What's your own relationship to artist residencies, before and after having kids?

Jill: I never did the residency circuit the way some of my friends did. I always worked in the summers between the academic years, and then right after I graduated I had a faculty position lined up at the San Francisco Art Institute. I did a residency at Stanford when Paxton was about 9 months old, and it was nontraditional in the sense that I had access to the facilities and got to go to campus as many times as I wanted. It wasn’t immersive, but it was what I needed at the time.

Jill nursing in Pittsburgh's City Capitol building during
a proclamation of "Milk Truck Day" by the City Council

CR: Like a lot of artists raising kids, you wear many hats. How do you find a balance between parenting, teaching, and an art practice that now includes running a nonprofit?

Jill: It’s taken years to align family life with my creative practice and teaching. When I’m teaching, my classes cover social sculpture or critical, participatory artmaking, which is aligned with my own practice. They feed each other. When we do community events with the Family in Residence program at ArtReach, I can bring my kids and they can participate. My eldest son has some special needs, so my artwork has to be flexible to work with my family. It seems like right now things are coming together in this very wonderful way. But ask me next month and things may have completely fallen apart!

CR: Right now ArtReach focuses on artists based in the Bay Area. I know lots of artists will want to know: are there any plans to make it available to artists from outside of the region? Or is this a creative model you’d like to see other institutions expand upon?

Jill: We hope to bring the truck across the US next year after we’ve piloted the program in the SF East Bay. This will require additional fundraising, and we are looking for partner institutions. I’d love to see The Getaway Van take a Transamerican tour.

We'd love to see that happen, too! To learn more about the project visit the ArtReach residency website, donate to help support what they're doing, and if you’re near the Bay Area, be sure to apply.

inside the new ArtReach residency truck, with workspace, storage, and chalkboard walls.

CR Event Series Report: Making it What We Need

For the final installment in our Childcare-Supported Event Series, Cultural ReProducers teamed up with Glass Curtain Gallery to host Making it What We Need, a generative workshop that brought together a great mix of artists, art students, critics, and arts administrators from galleries, residencies, and museums across the city.

The event was presented in conjunction with the exhibition Division of Labor: Chicago Artist Parents, at Glass Curtain Gallery, exploring the intersections of contemporary art, career, and family life.  GC was wonderful to work with, and the exhibition offered a perfect context for brainstorming sustainable and supportive systems for cultural producers raising kids. Our childcare team transformed a nearby meeting room into a dynamic playspace with colorful tape shapes and a cozy reading corner stacked with quilts and books. We learned from past experience to
allow more time for sign-in and transition, and thanks to the gallery's flexible morning schedule we were able to start that process sooner. While the adults hatched plans outside, our kids worked with the fantastic Ash, Craig, Marieke and Andrew to construct their own visions for the future using colored sensory dough, rubber stamps, and poster-sized paper.

CR organizers Christa Donner and Selina Trepp started things off with a slideshow and discussion of the goals and Challenges of the Cultural ReProducers Event Series, from living-room meetups to childcare-supported museum events. Then the whole group got down to business. Participants were invited to fill out worksheets identifying our own needs in the art community as well as key barriers to achieving those goals. After taking some time to reflect on our own, we split into small groups to take on these challenges together. Since the groups were randomized many had the chance to work with cultural producers we'd never met before, making for new connections and great brainstorming.

Working around the time constraints of certain hungry, nap-ready kids in the next room, we wrapped up the whole event in a little under two hours. Sure, it was a bit quick to realize all our hopes and dreams … but as everyone packed up their things, we overheard several people exclaim “we could totally do this!” as they exchanged information to get in touch later. The ideas generated when we put our heads together were amazing, and it turns out, pretty possible with a little teamwork: studio co-ops with childcare, a CR certification program for institutions, reading groups, listservs, and a guerrilla campaign challenging assumptions and expectations about mamas in the arts. 

Want to get involved? We’re now in the process of connecting participants and other interested creative people through project-specific groups. Even if you couldn't make it to this event, feel free to download a copy of the MIWWN Event Report. Then take our quick  Survey to let us know which projects you're most interested in. You're welcome to join the conversation even if you live outside Chicago.

Our goal is twofold: to give parents and their kids the chance to participate as critical members of the arts community, and to inspire cultural institutions to better serve artists and audiences, providing positive models for future programming. The childcare-supported series may be over, but have no fear – there will be plenty more chances to connect, organized by amazing cultural (re)producers throughout the city. More information on our Artist-Run Events coming soon!

Making It: LowJam

On a chilly Saturday we drove out to a low, mostly windowless brick building and followed paper signs in kid-scrawl around to a narrow side door. Stepping inside, we found ourselves in a kitchen adjoining a stage area lit by Christmas lights. The space thrummed with the sonic energy of a live dance party.

The music was fantastic. This was no surprise: the musicians performing included supertalented composers and multi-instrumentalists LeRoy Bach, Mikel Avery,  Dan Bitney, Khari Lemuel, & Matthew Lux, known for their roles in bands like Wilco, EveryPeople Ensemble,Tortoise, Isotope 217 and others, and they were clearly having a great time playing together. The unusual thing about this show was that it started in the middle of the day, and in addition to familiar faces from the city's art and music scenes it was co-populated by a small mob of young children ranging in age from about 9 months to 9 years old. They bounced on parents' laps, rolled around on giant cardboard tubes of the type usually used for cement-pouring, and giddily ran back and forth to the kitchen area, where there were crockpots of homemade rice and beans, jugs of juice, and a big bowl of peanuts to keep everyone satisfied between sets.

This is LowJam, a series of impromptu underground dance parties for adults and kids organized by LeRoy Bach in collaboration with a bunch of amazing musicians, many of whom are parents themselves or have other close connections to parents / kids. Attending a Low Jam event is like discovering your favorite band playing a secret show in somebody's basement, with the added pleasure of sharing that magic with your own children.

After two sets and a short snack break, Mikel Avery equipped the kids in attendance with small instruments and schooled them into an impromptu marching band that kicked off the Open Jam part of the show, leading everyone back into the stage area. Children excitedly piled around the professional drum kit, piano, mics, and organ and started banging away. After letting them have at it for a few minutes, Bach stepped up and helped them structure their soundmaking into a loose composition, directing spaces for groups of kids to play solos on each instrument. As he laid down a solid beat on the drums, a surprisingly cohesive intergenerational performance began to come together, fronted by two young girls who alternated crooning and rapping, "I dunno / I dunno / because it's crazy like whoah." The adults in attendance grinned and shook their heads in wonder: it sounded great. The aesthetic strengths of the Open Jam were no doubt enhanced by the musical upbringings of many kids there, but the unpredictable impulses that children naturally bring to such a situation only added to the improvisational energy.

Letting the sound vibrate through me, I realized that I hadn't enjoyed a really good live show since I became a parent. What a shame, and what a crime never to have shared such an experience with my own daughter before. It should not be all that transgressive, but such an event requires letting go of some fundamental assumptions: that a good dance party should start after 10pm, that kids will only enjoy certain types of music, that all family events should be highly-sanitized, safeguarded and sanctioned, that art created by/for adults can't also be thoroughly enjoyable for children, and vice versa. Most 'family' programming is created for children with parents along for the ride. LowJam taps into the energy of everyone present to create a rich musical experience. Period.

The next LowJam is Saturday, March 28th. Band starts at 1:30pm and will play for 30 minutes. Open Jam led by Mikel Avery starts at 2pm. A donation of $5 per guest or what you can offer is requested. Email us at culturalreproducers (at) gmail.com for location and other information.