Interview: Mintio and Kabul


Mintio (Samantha Tio) and Kabul (Budi Agung Kuswara) are internationally exhibited artists whose work has shifted profoundly since becoming parents. As the sexism and privilege of the art world presented new barriers, the two artists merged their separate practices into multimedia collaborations, including “The Wax on Our Fingers” and “The Current/s We Call Home.” They also founded Ketemu Project, a socially-engaged arts organization in Bali that allows them to operate beyond the commercial art world. Ketemu uses art to engage marginalized groups in the community, address environmental concerns, and support the work of fellow artists through a new family-in-residence program. When we spoke, the two parents were separated by the pandemic, with borders closed: Mintio working from home in Singapore with their 8-year old daughter, Ning, and Kabul in Indonesia, where Ketemu is based.

Cultural ReProducers is pleased to share a series of conversations with artists parenting in Singapore. This interview is part of a creative exchange between Cultural ReProducers and the artist-run gallery CommaSpace. This partnership began in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, when connecting with artists meant juggling online conversations while caring for e-learning children at home. We’re so thankful for these conversations, which raise critical questions about support, culture, and creativity.
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Cultural ReProducers: Mintio, you grew up in Singapore and Kabul in Bali, and you typically travel between the two when you’re not grounded by a pandemic. How has this shaped the culture of your family and your creative community?

Kabul: I’m not a typical Balinese: my mom is Javanese and my dad is Balinese. I grew up in this mixed culture environment, so when I was younger my family from my mother’s side, when I visited Java they brought me to a mosque to pray. And when I come here to Bali I would go to the Hindu temple to pray. Traditional Balinese they are really connected with daily cultural activities. When I went to JogJakarta for 13 years - to study, and I had my studio based there – I felt comfortable because I had 24 hours my time to manage on my own. So when I met Mintio in Jogja, I don’t see it as much different in terms of cultural background. But when I visited Singapore, I had … a challenge to fit.  Everything’s really efficient in Singapore, but my work as an artist is not a “profession” there.

Mintio & Kabul, image from "The Wax On Our
Fingers" series, cyanotype and wax on cotton.

Mintio: We are facing transnational issues in terms of Visas, and I think that’s the biggest thing that we’ve been working out the entire of our parenting and family life. Reflecting on my own cultural identity, I see myself very much of an outcome of migration. I’m born to an immigrant family of Southern Chinese and, you know, this is not my land. Whereas in Bali, Kabul has his ancestral hall, and all the lineages and histories attached to the land. I’m this kind of floating entity. Kabul really has that status as a third-culture child, by having mixed parentage. So I’m wondering what’s gonna be in it for [our daughter] Ning, as a third-culture kid.

In a sense, what we want to establish for our child is that you can be at home anywhere. You can be anything you define yourself to be. But of course that also involves a lot of scaffolding – it has to be very conscious and aware. So even as a very young child I talked to her about “What’s the difference between your cultural identity, your nationality? What does it mean? Who are you?” Because these questions get thrown to her a lot in school here: in Singapore you are believed to have this very singular identity: you’re either Malay, Indian, Chinese, or “Other.”
 

What grounds us culturally is art. We see art as that binding force in our family. That allows us to exist anywhere as a family – being nomadic, you know, we build our own kind of network as a family, creative community around the world. Kabul and I have a practice that, whatever we make, it has to fit into our luggage. Or it could be rolled or folded. That constraint gives a certain kind of liberty to where we can show – it has shaped the medium of our works. Ever since that we work a lot with tapestry, textiles, anything that can be folded. It could even be something that you could wear onto the flight, you know, like a really big jacket. The installation was about 100 meters square, but we fit everything into a self-bought bag that Kabul could take onto the flight.

Mintio and Kabul, installation view of "The Current/s We Call Home," mixed media with sound

CR: This cultural complexity informs your collaborative work. I know you work both separately and also together. Could you talk about that?

Mintio: We have our joint practice and we have our individual practices, and they are quite different. When we come together, we quite naturally turn to address the issues we are facing together. I think my own work is quite acultural because it’s quite technical. But Kabul… recently it’s become more cultural, but previously it focused more on socio-political issues.

 

Kabul: Yes, because my situation here also relates to… cultural consequences. Because my mother is Javanese and my father is Balinese from a certain caste, things happened to me as a child that didn’t allow me to carry that caste. So when I am younger, this gives me a different treatment. For example, I can’t share a cup with my family. In the beginning I see this treatment as something that really makes me sad. But after studying in university I moved to Jogjakarta, and I come to see this as a kind of freedom. I was able to see Bali more clearly, looking back. I start to learn about history, how Balinese culture formed. When I’m in Jogja I’m exploring social issues. Now that I’m back, I work closely with historical material and cultural practices that I tweak with my own understanding. For traditional Balinese they can’t do this, because it’s against their beliefs.

Mintio: Together we run an art organization called Ketemu Project in Bali. Ketemu means “to meet,” so basically what we are doing is we are meeting each other. Katemu is this… other thing, so it’s everyday work that people can connect to in Indonesia.

In our residency program, we have a family-in-residence, where we create the infrastructure to support entire families. That came from our experience being in residence at Bamboo Curtain Studios in Taiwan. We were invited as a family, so that was wonderful. Other than everybody being very welcoming, there were things like high chairs, open spaces for her to run around. Being with a child wasn’t a taboo conversation. We would bring her to all our shows, all our workshops - she was always there. So it didn’t seem like our parenting lives were separate from us throughout the entire residency.

Budi Agung Kuswara (Kabul), "The
Grateful Society," cyanotype and ink
on cotton paper

We realized that ever since we became parents, we’d been cut off from many residency opportunities. Most residencies expect you to go alone for extended periods of time. You cannot bring a spouse – you definitely cannot bring a child. We find that framework really challenging for artists holding caregiving identities, and it defines artists in a really narrow way. So we were inspired and motivated to further support families through our own residency program, to support artists more holistically. 


CR: How did your practice change when you had a child?

Kabul: For me, what had to change is having to adjust to the idea of being a parent in Singapore. I never worked in an office, or worked for other people before. Luckily, my in-laws slowly accept me, but in the beginning, they asked me to find a job [there]. I tried to do that. I spent two years for experiment. I didn’t come up with artwork that was final or ready. Sometimes I can say this artwork is “done,” just to make myself happy – but I realized this is not maximal. This was a really important process as a step to develop my work now.

The biggest thing after having kids is, What art really can do, beyond the object? To achieve this we can’t work alone. Ketemu is the infrastructure to support this vision. And what art can do, especially in this pandemic situation… the challenge in Bali is that the largest industries are shut down and no tourists can come, so what can we do? When we talk about art and creativity, it’s becoming more and more relevant to social challenges. Ketemu can be a tool and it can also be a legacy. I adjust as someone who has to take care of other people outside of myself. I enjoy parenting very much. Since our daughter was born until she is 3, 4 years, I’m the one who gives her bath every day. Because that’s how, here in Bali, parents take care. It was really rare for my circle here to have helpers to take care of their kids. But I think it will be different for Mintio.

"Instead of having this tangible end product, we think about how we can actually shape society."

Mintio photographing batik artisans for "The Wax on Our Fingers"

Mintio: I think parenthood really changed a lot. Prior to having our child, I was very much a career artist – I would do shows pretty regularly, I could draw regular income from my work. But that work was also very physically strenuous. The conditions of production, even on a logistical basis, are so different. I still have not managed to resolve it.

I photograph predominantly with the large format [camera], so I had all this really huge gear and I’d walk for hours, work alone for days at a time, with very little human interaction. Through my pregnancy I sustained a bad back injury that I’m still dealing with now, and I had to hire an assistant to carry my gear for me. It became very clear that this mode of production might not be able to sustain itself. The cost of hiring an assistant long term, and of production itself, was so high that I started to have that mindset of comparing the sheets of film that I will use to diaper money or milk powder money. And that held back... I didn’t have that same degree of experimentation that I had while being single. It became a mental block.

So what was continuing to drive my work was collaborations with Kabul. There were times when we would fight, and I would wish I could just go back to my own personal practice. But there’s also many wonderful, magical things that came out of it. We were able to travel together as a family, like the Bamboo Curtain residency. That was where the art community recognized our joint practice, and were able to give us opportunities based on that.

In Singapore I face a lot of discrimination for being an artist and a mother at the same time. When I was expecting, I applied for a scholarship to pursue my Masters. Having higher education beyond a Bachelors has always been my dream. I got good responses from the University, and got scholarships on the other end, but I needed scholarship here. The final round of interviewing came one, two weeks after I gave birth to her. I remember that day. It was pouring rain, I had to leave Kabul and Ning at home and went for my interview. The interview was scheduled to be around 3pm, and it ran late… it didn’t begin until 6pm, and I didn’t pump enough milk for her. When I got home, he was carrying her around and she was just crying. I was in tears, it was raining, it was really bad.

But what added to the whole negativity of my experience was that the whole interview became about my motherhood. When I came in, everybody clapped. And I was like “Why are you clapping?” And they said “You just gave birth, didn’t you?” And I was like “Yes…but what does that have to do with this interview?” (laughter) I was pretty anxious already, having left Kabul and Ning alone for so long. Lets get right to it. This male panelist said, “You just gave birth. What makes you think you can study?” Another male panelist was just sitting across from me doing this the whole time (leans on hand with a troubled expression, shaking her head). What they just couldn’t figure out was, how could you go do your Masters when you just had a child? It wasn’t information I gave in the application. I wasn’t being evaluated for my ability as an artist - more on the disability that I would face. I couldn’t believe that half the time of the interview I had to defend that.  In the end I didn’t get the scholarship. I’ve always been quite stimulated by the academic setting – it’s a place I want to be. But I don’t even think that I could go beyond a Bachelors now, with all the challenges.

CR: It’s a little shocking how many people still assume a woman will stop her career once she becomes a mother, even if you’re actively parenting together with a partner.

Mintio: I’m very fortunate that my earlier works have still been circulating, going around to shows, globally. But I have not managed to make anything new, besides our joint works. There’s always this pressure as an artist that you need to constantly make new work to validate yourself. But only now, in the case of the pandemic, do I tell myself “It’s okay not to make work! It’s okay to take a pause. It doesn’t mean you won’t make work in the future.” There’s the anxiety of being forgotten by your collectors, that the art world will think you’re not active anymore and hence exclude you from any opportunities.

Shortly after the interview, I was at a festival opening, the Singapore International Photography Festival. There was a curator there that I really respected. He introduced me to some other guy as “This is Mintio, but she’s not very active now because she just had a child.” I didn’t know what to say. All these microagressions, they ate into my self-esteem as an artist. When I was awarded a commission, I questioned myself. All my negotiations felt asymmetrical, and it became really unhealthy. It doesn’t seem to impact male artists in this way. They wouldn’t go up to a male artist and say “oh this is so and so, but he just had a kid, so of course he hasn’t been producing work.”

Kabul and team molding banana fibers with Mintio's photographic
prints into sail forms for "The Currents We Call Home."

CR: Are there any artists you’ve been able to look to, examples of how to make it work as artists and parents?

Mintio: I did a lot of research, actually. I went to a lot of symposiums where mothers talked about what could be done. There was one artist who said “bring your child to work,” and there were all these tips being dropped. But the ability to do all of that comes with a lot of privilege. Our family is quite modest financially. We can’t afford a caregiver or a helper, which I’m actually very thankful for. All these mothers being able to incorporate their kids, to have it all, there’s all this privilege that you don’t see. Maybe they have a hedge fund, or they draw rental income (laughter). So as much as earlier on there were parenting artists I want to emulate, in the end my earlier models were like “pffft” [makes a gesture of something going up in smoke]. 


Kabul: After we had Ning, we have been doing much more community-based work. We actually take care of many, many more people. So for me, it’s been about activating my instincts of taking care. Maybe it will mean adding additional staff that I will have to deal with, but when I look at it as a life, something that I just enjoy – our lives have this perspective by seeing what I can do, and I can learn from other artists in the same way. For me this is all natural. I don’t actually compare them. I really learn a lot, taking care of more people after we have kids.



Mintio: Instead of having this tangible end product, we think about how we can actually shape society in a certain way. It’s all about changing mindsets and perspectives. Our recent project has been about disability and mental health. It was not a physical work that we could sell -- the work was about how we could impact our own communities. I don’t know if you feel this way, but being a parent makes us aware of our own mortality. Like, what’s going to happen to Ning if I die? And it also makes us think about our legacies: What do I want to leave behind? For a lot of families in Singapore it would be like, I want to leave behind excess: a house, some money for my children… but for us it is quite clear that we don’t want to leave behind all that. So very clearly our work now is that we want to be able to leave behind a society that Ning could thrive in, where she can be herself and feel accepted. 


Artist Alisha B. Wormsley Launches Residency for Black Mothers

A Sybils Shrine meeting takes place over Zoom

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When she first learned she was pregnant, artist Alisha Wormsley found herself excluded from artist residency opportunities she had already been awarded. Now she's turning that experience into a new program supporting black artist mothers in the Pittsburgh area. Cultural ReProducers looks forward to following up on this project and the artists involved as it gets underway in the new year, but in the meantime, we're sharing this lovely article, which first appeared on the Carnegie Mellon University news.

by Heidi Opdyke

 Alisha B. Wormsley built her career as an artist around residencies, which provide opportunities to live and produce work in different environments, including in places like Houston and Cuba. Then came her first pregnancy.

"I had two years of residencies lined up," recalled Wormsley, who is a Presidential Postdoctoral Research Fellow in art at Carnegie Mellon University. "I reached out to the organizations and they were all like, 'I guess you're not coming.'"

The experience was eye opening, and provided the inspiration for Sibyls Shrine, which gives residency opportunities to Black women who are mothers and identify as artists, creatives and/or activists. Wormsley founded the organization in collaboration with Naomi Chambers and CMU alumna Jessica Gaynelle Moss.

"For these women, the challenges of parenting in combination with systemic racism and sexism often make the barriers to entry into the art world insurmountable," Wormsley said.

Named after the priestesses of the Black goddess Mami Wata, Sibyls Shrine is motivated by a similar goal: helping Black mothers with opportunities for self-care, childcare, space and support so they can further develop their craft and create a sustainable arts practice.

"As soon as Alisha told me about the project, I was in love," said Chambers, who was selected for a Community Liaison Residency for Sibyls Shrine. "Being an artist in Pittsburgh, and being a Black mother, there's not a lot of opportunities that you get to take advantage of to still be a really good artist and maintain your practice while also trying to be a really good mom."

As part of her role, Chambers, who is a painter and assemblage artist, will be creating a marketplace for artists while working on her own art. She and her husband previously ran the Flower House in Wilkinsburg, which served as a community art studio.

"We all look at art making as problem solving and world building. It's just one of the ways that I've been able to survive and figure out things in my life," Chambers said. As a community liaison, she's looking to understand how to help people find resources they might not have known were available as well as develop her own identity as a leader. "I'm learning more about what my skills and strengths are to understand how that can align with how to help those who need help," she said. "I'm excited by the opportunity."

Sibyls Shrine includes three additional residency programs and is funded by the Just Arts program of The Heinz Endowments, The Pittsburgh Foundation, and Opportunity Fund. Additional financial support has been provided by the Mattress Factory Museum and Silver Eye Center for Photography. Along with the Community Liaison, the Visiting Artist and Home residencies will begin Jan. 1, 2021.

"There's nothing else like this," Wormsley said. "Our goal is that this is not only successful for us but we want to create a model that can be replicated around the country. That's part of our mission."
Sibyls Shrine is a new artist residency program for Black women. The organization is named after priestesses of the Black goddess Mami Wata. The term, which predates Greek history, was used to name the guardians of the Matriarchy.

SIBYLS SHRINE VISITING ARTIST RESIDENCY

A deliberate force in the landscape of contemporary American art for the last three decades, Renee Cox is an internationally renowned photographer and mixed media artist. Cox frames her self-portraits as poignant arguments on race, desire, religion, feminism and visual and cultural aesthetics. Cox will begin her yearlong residency in January 2021. As visiting artist-in-residence, she will be supported for one year with an unrestricted honorarium, material and supply budget, travel and residential accommodations. While in Pittsburgh, she will have access to the facilities and support of multiple arts organizations and institutions, ultimately resulting in an exhibition with additional members of the Sibyls Shrine team. Cox will participate in public programming throughout the city and will serve as a mentor to the three Sibyls Shrine Home Residents over the duration of her residency.


SIBYLS SHRINE HOME RESIDENCY

The Home Residency will support three Pittsburgh-based artists, Mary Martin, LaKeisha Wolf and sarah huny young, with professional and personal development, space, connectivity, mutual aid, financial and creative support, mentorship and exhibition opportunities. The artists will remain in their own homes, but will be supported with relief from some of their day-to-day tasks of homecare, childcare, cleaning, and grocery purchasing and shopping in order to provide them with the time, space and resources to support their creative practices. Other Black creative mothers and working professionals from the Pittsburgh area will be hired to provide support and assistance.

Martin is a high school visual arts instructor at Winchester Thurston School and a member of Women of Visions, Inc., an arts collective of Black female artists. She exhibits nationally and collaborates on educational programming for various cultural institutions.

Wolf is an artisan and owner of Ujamaa Collective, a micro-enterprise centered on making and wellness. She has grown her skills working to uplift and center her

own healing, as well as other Black women and the Africana community, using nature, arts and culture. Wolf's resources are stones and natural elements, symbols and affirmations.

Young is an award-winning visual artist primarily documenting and exalting Black womanhood and queer communities through portraiture and video. Framing her muses as collaborators, she often shoots on-location across the country in personal, intimate spaces of the subject's choosing. Her work has been featured in Pittsburgh City Paper, New York Magazine and The New York Times.

At the conclusion of visiting artist and home residencies, a final group exhibition will be held at the Mattress Factory Contemporary Museum.

PANDEMIC PIVOT

When Sibyls Shrine was first conceived, Wormsley had added travel and networking costs into her team's budget. COVID-19 changed those plans.

"We were like, well, we have this money, we can't travel, and moms need support. Let's create a network where we can," Wormsley said.

The Network Residency was born. Cohorts of 30 participants meet virtually for eight-week sessions. Each participant receives a stipend for joining as well as an honorarium for presenting on a topic of their choice. So far, 60 mothers have gone through the program. About 75 percent are from the Pittsburgh area. Wormsley said presenters provided information on everything from gardening, website tutorials, budgeting to discussing their artistic practices or doctoral research."I'm so happy. It's actually the right thing for right now," Wormsley said.

While Sibyls Shrine grew out of Wormsley's own experience, it continues to feed her art as she constantly explores ways to engage and create community. At CMU, her research fellowship is focused on the resurgence of practices in Black communities such as herbalism, plant medicine and midwifery. Skills, which Wormsley said, allow Black women to be sustainable in their communities.

What Artist Residencies Can Do For Artist Parents - And What Artist Parents Can Do for Artist Residencies

An ad-hoc group of artists, artist residencies, and funders is working together to spread the idea of parent-friendly residencies beyond the pioneering group of residencies that currently offer space for families.

A little background: In the summer of 2017, Eve Biddle and Will Hutnick of The Wassaic Project talked with Travis Laughlin, then of the Joan Mitchell Foundation, about the challenges of supporting artist parents. That conversation led to a larger gathering at The Wassaic Project, with leaders from Artists U, the Joan Mitchell Foundation, the Marble House Project, the Millay Colony, Sustainable Arts Foundation, and Wassaic.

In 2014, Artists U did a project called Artists Raising Kids: a national survey, in-depth interviews, and gatherings in Philadelphia and Baltimore. As a result, I have a lot of artist parents in my network. So before the meeting at Wassaic, I surveyed 300 artist parents about artist residencies: What are the barriers?

The top two barriers were not surprising: accommodations for children, and childcare or money for childcare. Those are real needs, and addressing them takes significant resources. But the third and fourth most common barriers were: duration of residencies, and lack of scheduling flexibility. I was struck that addressing these barriers, while they require some administrative work, do not cost a lot in dollars. How many more artist parents could do a residency if they could choose the duration and start date? How many artist residencies might be willing to take this smaller step and become more parent friendly?

Here is one output from our conversations at Wassaic. We outlined a “spectrum of support” that
residencies can offer artist parents. Family-friendly residencies, with accommodations and childcare for children, are amazing, of course. But we also highlight other, smaller steps residencies can take. We hope the entire residency sector can make some of these smaller, simpler changes to open up possibilities for artist parents.

On the flip side of the poster, we offer ways artist parents can help problem-solve these challenges. In Artists U, we don’t start with our needs; we start with our skills.

Please share this poster with artists and residencies. And if you have thoughts or ideas about it, get in touch.

andrew simonet
artist
founder, Artists U

Residency Report: Marble House, Dorset, Vermont

Residency Report is an ongoing series of posts from artists who've undertaken creative residencies with their families. Find out about programs that support artists with kids, and see how other artist-parents balance the residency experience.
 
We've been curious about Marble House ever since they first announced their 17-day family residency program, not only for its interdisciplinary approach but also because it's one of very few that includes an on-site day camp to keep artists' children engaged and exploring while their parents get down to their creative work. We were thrilled when artist and activist Sheryl Oring agreed to share her experience there.

Imagine a Tuscan villa with an ornate eight-bedroom marble mansion complete with fountain-filled grounds and an ample garden. This one is in Vermont, though, on the site of an old marble quarry. And each summer it offers its bounty to a group of artists and their families as part of the family-friendly residency program at Marble House Project.

The house itself, built around 1820 and expanded on in 1908, is on the National Register of Historic Places. The grand expansion to the house and addition of the gardens, designed by Charles Downing Lay, was commissioned by Edwin Lefevre Sr., an author, entrepreneur, and son of a Central American diplomat. In 1909, he was appointed ambassador to Spain and Italy by his native country, Panama.

The gardens provided plenty of fresh produce for our dinners.

 This historical home and the surrounding 48 acres was turned into Marble House Project by founder Danielle Epstein, who launched the artist residency program together with Dina Schapiro in the summer of 2014 after acquiring the property and doing renovations. Each year, Marble House Project hosts one 17-day summer residency session exclusively for artists and their families. Artist groups are multidisciplinary including artists working in film and video, literature, visual arts, music and composition, dance and performance and culinary arts. Besides the family residency session, Marble House Project also runs a series of three-week residencies (no children allowed) from mid-April through the end of October.

When I applied to Marble House Project, I had not done a residency for nearly two decades. My 10-year-old daughter Shira was just as excited as I was, and the Marble House experience lives on as a true highlight of our summer adventures. As it happened, Shira was one of the older kids at Marble House. At first I was worried she wouldn’t integrate into the groups of younger kids that seemed to form immediately upon arrival. But by the second day, she stepped up to the task and soon started playing with the younger kids and also taking on bedtime story duty for several of them. That made the other parents very happy.

Marble House Project is organized “around a responsibilities-sharing system, highlighting sustainability and fostering community.” What that means in practicality is that Marble House Project provides the shelter, workspace, weekday childcare (from 9 am to 3:30 pm) a tremendous garden and chickens that lay a prodigious amount of eggs – and the residents are responsible for cooking and basic household maintenance. In such a large group of artists, mostly with “only” children, this could get harried at times. But when spirits got high, there was always the swimming hole to dive into or the firepit to roast marshmallows by and then most of our cares faded under the light of the moon.

Agitype drawing series started at Marble House and feature quotes
from the #MeToo movement.

Then, after the morning breakfast rush and the kids went off camp, we got some precious time in the studio or for a walk through the forest or to chat with one of the other artist-parents gathered in this special place.   The time at Marble House Project allowed me to create a series of prints based on my  I Wish to Say performance project in which I invite people to dictate postcards to the U.S. President. The prints I made at Marble House Project were shown at Art Prize in Grand Rapids, Michigan, this fall. I also made the first of a new series of drawings called Agitype that features quotes from the #MeToo movement drawn with stencils in a format that resembles newspaper headlines. I also used two days of the residency to work with Emily Larned, my graphic design collaborator, who drove up from Connecticut, stayed in a nearby Airbnb, and joined me in my studio to work together on a catalog for a mid career survey show. The work we did on the catalog for Agitype: Changing the World One Letter at a Time at the Lois and David Stulberg Gallery at the Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota was critical for getting it done on a short deadline. The quiet at Marble House Project allowed the work to happen.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the stay at Marble House Project fostered friendships with the other artists, and shared experiences as artist parents. My daughter noted as we drove home that the children of artists are just a bit different from her other friends. And hanging out with a whole group of them for two weeks was something she’ll never forget. Beyond that, it was a place where she had the freedom to roam, to swim, to run, to play… and to collect eggs each day.

GOOD TO KNOW

Cooking in the culinary studio with chef Angel Torres and
writer Amanda Rea.

Residents are responsible for cooking group meals 5 days a week and also for doing the dishes and kitchen clean-up. In my group, we had 14 adults and 9 children, and sometimes more if the staff or guests joined. Cooking for such a large group is not everybody’s thing and so this is something to be aware of. We figured it out and ate some amazing meals with the help of resident chef Angel Torres.

Cell phone reception is dependent on which carrier you have. I have T-mobile and had zero service. Others with Verizon and AT&T were better off. The internet in the main house was unreliable. I ultimately gave up trying to use the wifi there; luckily the wifi worked better in my studio. Others had better luck with wifi in the main house. My room was one of two rooms on the top floor of the house and this might have been the cause.

At the end of each session, artists are asked to present their work at an event called Art Seed. This takes the form of talks, performances and open studios. Participation is optional.

CHILDCARE

Kids going off to camp in the morning;

childcare is provided on weekdays from 9-3:30.

Marble House Project provides a daycamp for children ages 4-14 on weekdays from 9 am to 3:30 pm. The programming involves nature, art, playing, swimming, farming and cooking. Lunch is provided. Marble House Project co-founder Dina Schapiro, who creates the camp, has been working with kids for over 22 years as an art therapist and educator, and brings graduate Art Therapy students from Pratt to work with your kids as well. Kids outside this age group are welcome but there is no childcare provided so bringing a partner along to share with the care would allow the artist more worktime.

COSTS
Application fee is $32. The residency is free to the artist and their child or children ages 17 and under. There is a $100 deposit that is refundable at the end of the residency. If you bring a partner or spouse who is not an accepted artist, there is a $200 fee to help defray the additional food costs.  

ABOUT THE STUDIOS
Music studio: Main space is 19'4 by 16' and also contains a kitchenette and stone fireplace; there are two additional rooms and a bathroom. Includes: Baby grand piano, drum set, organ, various small instruments, writing desk, amp, studio speakers.

Dance and performance studio: A former swimming pool converted to dance studio with a sprung dance floor, track lighting and marble-lined walls. High windows flank the entire space providing abundant natural light. Studio is 26' by 40' with 11' ceilings.

One of the art studios in the garage.

Artist studios in the garage: Studio spaces are given to each resident based on their studio needs and their projects. There are three studios in this building, a kitchen, and a bathroom. Studios have white walls and range in size. Studio sizes are: 24'10" by 14'4''; 10'4"  by 13'6”; 8' 8"  by 15'

Artist/writer studios in the Ice House: There are two artist studios, an ADA compliant half bathroom, sink and electric stove in the Ice House. One of the studios is wood paneled, the other has white walls. Studio sizes are: 19'1" by 19'9'' and 12' by 15'3"

The Quarry office studio: This building has two wood-paneled rooms with a screened in porch overlooking the marsh. Writing desks, lamps. chairs, and easy access to exterior space. This is a summer cabin with no heat or internet.  Often used for writers or sculptors needing outdoor space with easy access to a studio. The bathroom and kitchen is next door in the Ice House. One room is 12' by 12'; additional smaller room is 12' by 7'8"; screened in porch 8' by 20'6".

Culinary arts studio: There is a fully outfitted prep kitchen that is 15' by 22'.

Collecting eggs was a favorite activity for many of the kids.

GETTING THERE
By far the easiest way to Marble House Project is by car. Other options include:

-    The Greyhound Bus from New York City to Manchester, VT, is 2 hours and 50 minutes.

-    Amtrak train (Empire Service and Ethan Allen Express) from Penn Station to Albany is 2 hours  and 25 minutes. When you arrive in Albany you will need to take a bus to Manchester, VT. The Amtrak station is a twenty minute walk from the bus terminal in Albany or you can take a taxi service which you can find at the train station. Marble House Project is a ten minute cab ride from Manchester or you can make arrangements with a taxi service from Albany or other locations. 

NEARBY ATTRACTIONS

Northshire Bookstore:
Less than 10 minutes away in Manchester, VT, this bookstore has a large children’s section with books and toys.
https://www.northshire.com/

Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (Mass Moca):
This art museum has a number of galleries that are certain to have exhibits appropriate for children and it also has Kidspace, a child-centered art gallery and hands-on studio presenting exhibitions and educational experiences in collaboration with leading artists. The program focuses on contemporary social issues and expanding notions of art and art materials. Mass MOCA is about an hour away by car in North Adams, Massachusetts.https://massmoca.org/

Dorset quarry:
One of Vermont’s most beloved swimming holes is just five minutes down the road and offers natural diving platforms of varied levels.

Kids went swimming in the quarry nearly every day.

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Sheryl Oring has typed thousands of postcards to the President from locations across the U.S. since launching her I Wish to Say project in 2004. Oring had received public art commissions at airports in San Diego and Tampa and has shown her work at Bryant Park in New York; the Jewish Museum Berlin; the Berlin Wall Memorial; at Art in Odd Places in New York; the Art Prospect festival in St. Petersburg, Russia; and Encuentro in Sao Paolo, Brazil. An Associate Professor of Art at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Oring has received the North Carolina Arts Fellowship and grants from Franklin Furnace Fund, Creative Capital Foundation, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. Her book, Activating Democracy: The I Wish to Say Project, was published by University of Chicago Press. A mid career survey of her work, Agitype: Changing the World One Letter at a Time, is on display at the Lois and David Stulberg Gallery at the Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida, through December 8, 2018.

Residency Report: Popps Packing, Hamtramck, MI

Residency Report is an ongoing series of posts from artists undertaking creative residencies with their families. Find out about programs that support artists with kids, and see how other artist-parents balance the residency experience.

Here artist Kaitlynn Redell writes about her experience at Popps Packing, an artist-run, neighborhood-based nonprofit space focused on creating impactful arts programming and creative exchange between international and local artists in the community of Hamtramck / Detroit, Michigan.

not her(e) (stuffed animal)

Popps Packing is run by parent-artist couple Faina Lerman and Graem Whyte. Their Mom and Popp Residency is funded by the Sustainable Arts Foundation and included both an artist stipend, childcare stipend (I brought my almost two-year-old with me) as well as housing and studio space. My entire residency experience was incredibly easy and I truly believe this—in part—has to do with Faina and Graem’s understanding of the delicate balance between art-making and parenthood.  Even the “before” process of preparing for the residency was flexible; I was offered one month to come and work, and was easily able to choose my own arrival and departure dates. Unfortunately I couldn’t stay the full month due to scheduling conflicts, so instead I worked there for three weeks. My partner was allowed to come and stay as long as he wanted -- in our case, only a long weekend because of work.  We had an entire house to ourselves, and my studio was one door over at Popps Emporium (still within baby monitor range).  I had two different wonderful child caretakers who Faina and Graem use with own young children.


More than anything, I think the best part about the residency was the amount of support and flexibility.  I’ve had so many other residencies - even those with childcare stipends for the child to remain at home - be a lot more rigid.  We all know as parents, rigid is the last thing we need thrown at us; things come up and you have to learn how to go with the flow.

Popps studio, with work in progress

I thought it would be most helpful to other parent-artists, to outline a few logistic tips and notes about the residency:

THE GROUNDS
Popps currently has two different living spaces and studios options.  It is comprised of three buildings, all in very close proximity to each other.  We stayed in the Guest House, I had my studio in Popps Emporium and held a workshop in the original Popps Packing building.  Popps also has an amazing garden (offers a new garden residency), chickens, outdoor play areas, and two very sweet dogs and a cat. 


STUDIO TIME

the nearby Belle Isle Conservatory

During our three-week stay, I was able to create the pieces I originally set out to do, run a workshop, as well as have extra time to make a pretty large wall piece.  My studio time was structured during my daughter's nap time as well as when I had available childcare.  My daughter and I also had ample time to check out the surrounding areas and sights, like DIA, Eastern Market, Dabls African Bead Museum, Belle Isle, What Pipeline, Wasserman Projects and Hamtramck Disneyland just to name a few.

PROS:
* Very family friendly space.  Faina and Graem’s two kids were very sweet playmates to my daughter.

guest house shower

* Lots of kid stuff provided: toys, stroller, dishes, car seat, high chair, bath tub.

* Laundry on-site.

* Our flight arrived late, but Faina still met us at the car rental with the car seat and even had grabbed us some groceries so I didn’t have to go out again!

THINGS OF NOTE
(depending on your comfort level):

* Older house - it’s Detroit, so a lot of the houses are.  A bit like camping because of this (no heat, no ac, outdoor shower), but that was fine for us.

* Outdoor shower (which is kind of amazing in the morning), but no actual tub. They provided a small toddler one which also worked fine for us.

workshop with local artist-families

* Double-check the childcare schedule before coming.  It ended up working out, but if you need hard dates/times make sure you confirm before-hand.

* Slightly dusty workspace.  Again, not an issue for me, but other artists might have a problem, depending on your work.  They are in the midst of renovating some of the residency buildings, so some extra dust from that as well.

* Wifi was super weak at the guest house where we were staying, but to be honest, it was nice to have an internet detox.

TIPS:
* Definitely rent or bring a car.  I had never been to Detroit, but rented a car as per Faina’s recommendation.  The area is pretty spread out and having a car with a kid is a must if you intend to go anywhere besides the immediate neighborhood.

I would highly recommend this residency.  It is going to be even more amazing once all the renovations are complete.  I can’t say enough about Popps and how fully invested Faina and Graem are in their local community and creating an artist run exhibition space/residency that supports other artist parents.

not her(e) (table)

Kaitlynn Redell is a visual artist based in Los Angeles, CA. Her practice is invested in the exploration of race and gender in relation to the body and how the body becomes codified within these socially constructed categorizations. More specifically she is interested in inbetweeness and how “unidentifiable” bodies—that do not identify with standard categories—negotiate identity. She has participated in numerous exhibitions nationally and internationally including at El Museo del Barrio (NYC), Rush Arts Gallery (NYC), A.I.R. Gallery (NYC), Western Project (LA), Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery (LA), Charlie James Gallery (LA) and Museo Laboratorio - Ex Manifattura Tabacchi (Italy). Her work is currently on view at the 32nd Biennial of Graphic Arts: Birth As Criterion, in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Interview: Hồng-Ân Trương and Jina Valentine

In the midst of social, environmental, and political unrest, two of our most important resources are care and creative thinking. Artist-parents play a critical role in both, mindfully raising the next generation while also activating public imagination. Cultural ReProducers explore this intersection through a series of conversations with artists about the future our children will inherit, and the work we’re making in response. 

Hồng-Ân Trương and Jina Valentine are active artists, writers, mothers, and professors based in Durham, North Carolina, where they both teach at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). Their practices share a deep engagement with issues of cultural identity and social justice, and they’ve joined forces through the community-based project, All Rise, which we were lucky to catch at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago in April. All Rise combines strategies from two ongoing collaborative projects: Hương Ngô and Hồng-Ân Trương’s public performance And And And Stammering: An Interview and Jina Valentine and Heather Hart’s Black Lunch Table, activating candid conversations over a shared meal.  As close friends and collaborators, Hồng-Ân and Jina also operate as a sort of extended family, which in turn has expanded their creative lives. As we sat down to have this conversation over Skype, Jina had just accepted a new teaching position in Chicago, a geographical change that is the start of a new chapter in life, work, community and collaboration.

Cultural ReProducers: First, could you briefly describe your kids? Ages, names, general temperaments…



Jina: My son’s name is Sylvan Miles Palm Valentine, and he is four and a quarter years old. He’s playful, exuberant, and he loves people. He’s also aggressively affectionate, like a Labrador puppy. And Xuân June -  she’s also very affectionate, but also very contemplative. And she’s compassionate, and wise in her compassion well beyond her years. 



Hồng-Ân: I know! Xuân June is two and a half and she is totally this really emotionally mature human. It’s just... I don’t know where it came from (laughter). She is joyful and loves to laugh, but her temperament is very thoughtful, serious, and considerate – she’s aware of how people are feeling and is always asking how they’re doing. And she’s not afraid of trying anything physically – she’s kind of a monkey. Xuân June and Sylvan are like brother and sister: sometimes they totally love each other and then sometimes they totally don’t want to hang out.

CR: What kinds of expectations did you have about what it would mean to be a working artist who’s also a parent, and how have those squared with the reality of it? 

Jina: I think I had some idea that it was a big deal, but I still remember going in to tell the Chair of our department that I was expecting. He has a kid, and he’s like, “I’m really happy for you, but you’ve been really active in the department and have been taking on all these tasks... and when you have a kid, things change.” And I said “oh no, it’ll be fine, I’ll still be on all these committees, I’ll keep doing all this extra stuff, and you know, going out every night… (laughter) ” I couldn’t imagine how things might be different. He said “It’s not that you can’t do these things, but where you want to spend your time may change.” I think that was one of the biggest surprises to me. In Creative Capital workshops, one of the things they ask about is your professional priorities. Before, the way that I prioritized my time had been something like… departmental service at the top, then teaching, studio research, and then family. Now I’ve been trying to figure out how to flip that whole equation: family first, then research, teaching, and service.

I didn’t expect the experience of motherhood to change my worldview so drastically, and change the

way that I work in my studio – I mean not just practically, but what I’m talking about in the work. I knew that having a child is an obligation, of course you have to take care of this person that you made. But I didn’t expect him to be a friend. I miss him when I’m working. I enjoy just hanging out with him.

Hồng-Ân: It’s hard for me to remember what my life was like before Xuân June, which is so bizarre.

It already feels like this very far away thing. I think I did have the attitude that, “I’m going to be just as busy in the studio as I ever was and there’s no way that anything is going to take me away from that. I’ll give myself six months and then its back to normal, back to evrything.” It’s such an understatement that everything changes, and you just don’t realize how it can alter the fabric of your everyday life, and really alter your priorities. But I also didn’t expect that it actually wasn’t going to be that devastating to not be busy in the studio. I mean I remember at first, when I wasn’t really in the studio at all, till she was really about a year and a half, really, I was like “huh” (shrugs) – I wasn’t worried about my art career, it didn’t cause me anxiety.

Jina: That’s interesting. I don’t know that I felt the same way. Sylvan is four, and it’s only in the past
year and a half really that I’ve been able to spend a significant amount of time in the studio. I feel so much healthier, spiritually, intellectually. It’s been good for me and it’s also good for him, cause I’m more… me.

Hồng-Ân: But that time period when I was on leave during the first year of Xuân June’s life was when I started to realize that I needed to focus on being present here, in Durham, in North Carolina. So that was when we actually first collaborated, when I worked on the first integrated Black Lunch Table with you and Heather. So I think there was a shift in priorities in that sense; I wasn’t busy working on my individual material-based projects, but was working on stuff that felt really meaningful to me in a different way than just going at it in my studio. 

Also, I was really lucky in that Xuân June was born in May, and I was off for a year, but the summer after she turned one I had a three-month residency in Dublin, so I think in my mind I was like “That’s when I’m going to launch back into my studio practice.” As an artist you’re always thinking in this future way that’s kind of unhealthy, about what’s on the horizon.

CR: What was that first residency with your family like? 

Hồng-Ân: It was really… hard. (laughs) It was really great, I met great people and it was the most amazing, beautiful place ever. I love Dublin, and the Irish Modern Art Museum -- it’s in this old military complex, and the studios and apartments you stay in are old stables. But the thing that was hard was that my partner, Dwayne, was basically full time care for Xuân June. That was so stressful, and I felt guilty the whole time. I really shortened my days. I didn’t get to the studio until like ten in the morning, and then I’d break to nurse her, and then I’d finish up in the late afternoon. 

CR: You each have separate practices that activate dialogue around cultural identity and community, but you also do a lot of work in collaboration with others, including each other. Most recently you’ve brought together two of these group projects to develop All Rise, a performance and community-based meal that opens conversation about immigration and institutional racism. What do you feel is activated in merging your projects in this way? 

stills from Hương Ngô & Hồng-Ân Trương's And And And
Stammering: An Interview (top) and Jina Valentine &
Heather Hart’s Black Lunch Table (bottom)

Hồng-Ân: Bringing Black Lunch Table as a central part really added this other level of engagement to the project. Before we did the discussions afterwards, the performance part existed and then we would have this casual, moderated conversation with the audience, but there wasn’t a way for people to engage meaningfully with the thoughts and feelings they were having while watching the performance. Working with Jina and Heather really activates a strong piece that was missing.

In general I really enjoy collaborations. I still have a need to make work on my own, because there are some processes in the studio that are not necessarily shareable in a broader way, but it’s so much more enjoyable to make work with other people. I feel like collaboration is such a more human way to make work.

Jina: I think also practically speaking, collaborations are really important, especially as a new mom… When Sylvan was really tiny I was working on this piece with Heather Hart and Steffani Jemison, where we did over a year of meetings over Skype, and we still talk about how in the screen grabs there’s always Sylvan sitting on my lap or breastfeeding. That was how I was able to stay productive, by having other people to be accountable to, and to have this kind of group conversation that could keep things moving even when I’d only slept three hours.

Heather and I had been talking about how to expand Black Lunch Table, and I think it was around January of 2015 when Hồng-Ân and Dwayne came over to have dinner with our babies.  And we sat and talked about the Michael Brown shooting and about all of these police shootings. We were like “what are we going to do?” besides hashtagging and re-posting and marching, which are also necessary. We ended up getting a little money from the Institute for Arts and Humanities to do the first iteration of the Black Lives Matter Roundtable, which was organized collaboratively with Hồng-Ân and included her amazing community here. We invited the Durham-based activists and the folks from the Center for Documentary Studies, and professors from both Duke University and UNC, and students, and preachers to dine together at two events in Durham and Chapel Hill. That was the first event in a series that we’ve since been doing around the country.

As for All Rise, this collaboration with Hồng-Ân and Hương... Black Lunch Table centered conversation around social justice issues.  All Rise was an opportunity to focus conversation on people’s family histories, or immigration specifically, so I think that was really good for us to do. We also thought that it was our part of our responsibility as professors here at UNC to bring in the community, which has been fairly reluctant to have these kinds of conversations.

This is the community that I’m raising my kid in. How does that relate to my life as an artist here, as a teacher here, as an activist here? So it was a really intentional choice to make work here. It was so connected to everything else in my life as a new parent.

Hồng-Ân: When we collaborated for the first time I was on maternity leave. Xuân June was like six months old. It came together at a moment when I realized I really needed to focus on what’s here in front of me, and I do think it’s related to being a parent. There was a point when I said “I’m not going to fly to New York every other weekend like I used to do. I can’t do that shit anymore!” It made me recognize my desire to be more locally focused. This is the community that I’m raising my kid in. How does that relate to my life as an artist here, as a teacher here, as an activist here? So it was a really intentional choice to make work here. It was this other re-focus, without the anxiety of having an art practice that felt separate. It was so connected to everything else in my life as a new parent.

CR: For any parent, there’s always this question of what kind of world our children are growing up in, what challenges they might face, and what we hope for the future.  How does the current political climate impact your approach to raising your kids?
Hồng-Ân: I’m trying to think of whether I’m living my life differently now than if the situation was different. And I don’t know if I’d be doing anything differently if we were another era, or if Hillary or Bernie had been elected – there’d still be the same things out there. I think the Manchester bombing probably still would’ve happened. It brings up a larger question about global politics in general, and this state of powerlessness. I’m struggling with how to make sense of this era in some way, to temper my feelings of anxiety in having a larger view about the different conditions of violence that have always existed. It feels hyper intense right now. There are different levels of preparation for absolute crisis, and we’re preparing. If I wasn’t a parent I don’t know that I’d be doing anything differently in terms of all that. Do you think you’d be doing anything differently?

Jina: Yeah, I do. I know that I take better care of myself, for him. I started writing my will, and taking out life insurance. Stability is totally a priority. Even if the world is going to shit I try to maintain the appearance that everything is normal for him. Are things more extreme than they were in the cold war? I don’t know. James Moeser, a former Chancellor and now the acting Director of the Institute of Arts and Humanities at UNC, is a wise man who’s seen a lot of history in this state. He said to me, “Everything goes in cycles. I’ve been around for a long time.  The pendulum always swings back the other way.” This period we’re in cannot last.  But it’s also about the reality that the world might actually end. What happens when the glaciers melt? Will there be an earth for our grandchildren? If I was not a parent everything would be very different for me. I think I would be engaged in a very different way. You know? But now we have to engage in meaningful ways that are also safe.

Hồng-Ân: You’re right. In the early 2000’s I was on the front lines. I would be the first one to get tear gassed if… and now I wouldn’t. There is this other level of thoughtfulness around what is on the line. On the one hand there’s a lot more at stake about the future because we have kids now, so we should be working harder, and yet our bodies, our lives have a different kind of fragility and meaning because we have a child that we have to take care of. It has brought up this question of when I want to go to this protest, do I bring Xuân June or not? And then Dwayne and I have a conversation about is it safe, maybe just one of us will go.

Jina: We look for different ways to engage. We do things like Black Lives Matter Roundtable. Or we consider examples to model our civic engagement... like Pierce Freelon, hopefully the next Mayor of Durham, who’s the son of Nina Freelon and Phil Freelon, the architect of the African American History Museum. Or the activist and councilwoman, Jillian Johnson. You and I were just talking about what our roles are here in NC and at UNC... how do we change the system from within? Shit needs to be shaken up, and I see that as a kind of activism too.

Jina Valentine, Testimony (detail), iron gall ink and oxidant on paper, 2015

CR: So how has all this impacted your artistic practice?
Jina: I guess my first substantial body of work after Sylvan was about my inability to empathize with mothers who had lost their sons to police violence. I felt sympathy for them, and our relationship as moms changes to them because we want to empathize with them, but it’s your worst nightmare. When you’re hearing about Manchester, you’re thinking about the mothers of those people who were killed, not even necessarily the people who died. That kind of grief is pretty unfathomable. My most recent project is called Literacy Tests: Rorschach, looking at the most heavily gerrymandered districts in the country, which sort of look like Rorschach inkblot tests, and it’s also a play on the literacy tests that black folks had to undergo under Jim Crow. My work tends to inspire dialogue around the things I want to explain to Sylvan at some point.

Hồng-Ân Trương, On minor histories and the horrifying recognition of the swift work
of time, phototex, voile curtain, pigment print on fabric, HD video, c-stands, lights     

Hồng-Ân: The big project I’ve worked on for the last year and a half was about my mom. And this other photo-based project that I worked with Hương [Ngô] was also a photo-based project based on our moms together, about women and labor. So the two full bodies of work that I’ve completed since she was born have been about my mom, and you know, not at all unrelated and having this other level of of intense, emotional attachment to my mom vis a vis her relationship with to Xuân June. A lot of my work links together my family history with larger social and political histories, the impact of those broader social and political histories on these more personal narratives. I had done several projects about my dad, who passed in 2013. It was kind of an organic turn to my mom.

CR: You have brought together your creative approaches within an art context, but you also collaborate in everyday life, as a sort of chosen extended family. Could you talk about how that network of support has worked for you as artists, and how it has evolved? 

 Hồng-Ân: It just started really organically. We bring our kids everywhere. We have our kids with us all the time, and by that necessity they’re automatically going to become closer. Jina and I have very different households in terms of what support I have and what support she has, so it makes a lot of sense to share resources, and work together to make it work better and be… more fun! There’s this blurring between hanging out, being a parent, and getting work done at the same time. If we’re both going to be at a faculty meeting, we share someone who’s taking care of both of them together. There were just some very obvious ways we could join forces. We can go out to eat dinner and Dwayne will go run around with the kids so we can talk for a bit. There’s a sharing of caretaking when we’re together, that’s an obvious way to relieve the pressure of being “the parent” in every situation.

Vietnamese as a culture and a language is very familial. So when Xuân June hangs out with Jina she calls her Dì Jina, which is Aunt Jina. Everything is relational, even with strangers, and so I really enforce it among my close friends. I want her to feel just as comfortable with Jina as if she was an auntie. I feel really strongly that that’s a really important way to develop trust in the world, and also have different notions of support and family structure. I foster that intentionally by insisting that she call certain people by auntie or uncle.

Jina: I don’t know if I’m as intentional or if my son is just that weird only child who feels really comfortable around adults (laughter).

Hồng-Ân: I think kids of artists are more like that, because they’re around adults all the time. And
just thinking about your comment about wanting to hang out with Sylvan - I want to hang out with Xuân June, but I want to hang out with… adults, too. So I want her life to have the texture of being… not insular. So texting Jina and saying, what are you doing for dinner, do you want to come over? I just like that fluidness between spaces that are not sacred to that nuclear sense of the family. I really am conscious of wanting that.

Jina: I echo everything you just said, and I would add that for Sylvan and I, there’s just the two of us. His dad lives around the corner and we see him on the weekends, so there’s this attempting to give a semblance of normalcy. I grew up in an ultra-normal suburban household.  My folks have lived in the very same house for 42 years, and have been married for a few longer than that.  Growing up, the five of us always had a sit-down dinner, my mom cooked, and the kids cleaned up. It was the same thing every night, and then we’d have homework, TV, bed. We don’t have that kind of domestic structure now.  But I think for Sylvan it’s like I’ve always had, in my adult life, this chosen family, the people that I text right after I just saw them. We also have his community, the kids he meets at school and their families – I feel like we’ve kind of chosen them together, but it’s a very different thing. You set the date a week in advance, it’s much more planned how long we’re going to be there, what we’re going to do. I feel like it’s really important to cultivate those kinds of relationships that are Sylvan-centric. As much as possible I try to blend those communities.

Advisors, mentors who are official and unofficial, those folks are definitely models for how we might care for the next generation of artists. I feel like that’s part of our responsibility too.

CR: Who have been your models for artist-parenting or parent-artisting?

Jina: Maybe it’s an extreme example, but Hank and Deb Willis have an amazing relationship as collaborators, as friends.  I think about Hank a lot. I mean I think that’s the dream -- to be established to a point at which I want to be established by the time that Sylvan is a teenager or going to college, so that I can pass all of this knowledge and what not to do, how to survive, and also… create work with him.

Hồng-Ân: Deb Willis is an amazing example. She’s actually the reason I went to art school. I didn’t
know her when she was parenting Hank as a kid because Hank is exactly my age, but of course she is still and always a mom. Just thinking about what a powerhouse she is, and how did she do all of this while raising an amazing son. She’s powerful, kind, brilliant… so generous and so critical of the art world, and making her own way about how to exist as an artist and an intellectual. She’s definitely been my role model in general because she really embodies a really ethical way of operating as an artist and an intellectual. One of the most powerful things we can do is to model the way we think artists should exist in the world.

Jina: Other amazing Art moms... I used to have what I called “fairy godmothers.” Advisors, mentors
who are official and unofficial, those folks are definitely models for how we might care for the next generation of artists. I feel like that’s part of our responsibility too.

Lisa Sigal – she has two, three kids, they’re teenagers. She is a painter, and among other things, Curator at The Drawing Center. If she’s not there she’s in her studio, or she’s out in meetings with artists involved through the Drawing Center, or she’s having people over for dinner. She has children, and sometimes her husband is in town and sometimes he’s not, but it seems like it all works out.

Hồng-Ân: Around the time when I started thinking about having kids, a lot of my colleagues and friends had kids. I saw other people having kids and that gave me some sense that, okay, it’s possible. Not in the sense of holding someone up in high esteem, but just that there were people doing it. It’s not impossible. In the arts, you assume that people are parentless until proven otherwise. I think in the last five, six years that has really changed. I remember finding out that Simone Leigh and Saya Woolfalk were moms, and I was like “wow, badass.”