How can you attend your own show’s launch party if it clashes with the kids’ bathtime? Our writer spoke to 50 female artists about the impact of motherhood on their art
‘Last night,” says Laima Leyton, “I went to bed with a sticky thought. I was wondering why many of the women artists I love were not mothers: Laurie Anderson, Pauline Oliveros, Marina Abramović. I felt sad, as if they had more time for their work because they didn’t have to care for others. As if their solid, amazing work was their babies.”
Earlier this year, I interviewed 50 female artists – Leyton among them – about the impact of motherhood on their work. A similar “sticky thought” has nagged all of them, at one stage or another. Juggling motherhood and any career can be a struggle, but there seems to be something about the role of artist that makes the combination more than usually problematic.