M.A.M.A. Issue n.33: Kate Walters and Eve Packer
The ProCreate Project, the Museum of Motherhood and the Mom Egg Review are pleased to announce the 33rd edition of this scholarly discourse intersects with the artistic to explore the wonder and the challenges of motherhood. Using words and art to connect new pathways between the academic, the para-academic, the digital, and the real, as well as the everyday: wherever you live, work, and play, the Art of Motherhood is made manifest. #JoinMAMA
August, 2018 Art by Kate Walters Words by Eve Packer
Art by Kate Walters
Kate Walters’s works explore themes around the disembodied uterus, the narcissistic mother, and the connections we have with animals and wilderness.
Kate Walters’ works in watercolour, monotype, and oil are concerned with the interaction of the animal, plant, dream and human worlds; depicting in raw and graphic immediacy a relationship that is both intimate and nurturing.
Walters studied fine art at Brighton University. She spent some time working at her successful teaching career before completing a postgraduate fine art diploma at University College Falmouth. Around 2000 Kate was elected to be a member of the Newlyn Society of Artists. She is currently serving on the NSA Committee.
Words by Eve Packer
“summer flash”
when we were young, younger,
summer finds us in the play-
ground, niall & s.j., jeanne &
eric, sam & me, after a long
day of day care or whatever,
i’m not even sure we stopped
at home, i think, we bring the kids
w/change of clothes direct
to the playground: there is
a sprinkler-fountain, old-school,
up a few steps, a huge sand-
box, center, a huge concrete
ship for scaling, the kids
love, but someone once cracked
open his head–now of course
replaced by a generic safe climbing
structure–as its named–
anyway, the boys, they were all
boys, would play–for hours–
we would pick up sandwiches
at the opera–the deli–named for
nick and dom opera, the owners,
it was filthy and funky and they make
the best heroes and sandwiches, and
the kids play in the fountain–the neighborhood
transvestites stop by to use the bathroom
and one sits atop the sprinkler to cool off
and strut her stuff and get clean–and after
a bit the wise parks department attendant,
rather than make a fuss, just turns off
the water–the transvestite takes her leave, the kids
play til dark or after, maybe it turns
cool
wed., 8/1/18: 8:47 pm
Eve Packer – Bronx-born, poet/performer/actress. Appearing widely with dance, poetry, performance, music, theatre. NEH, NYSCA, NYFA awards. Downtown Poet of the Year awards. Numerous publications. 3 poetry books (Fly by Night Press). 5 poetry/jazz CD’s. Teaches at WCC. Mom, Grandmom, lives downtown, swims daily.
M.A.M.A. Issue n.32: Sophia Marinkov Jones and Sherine Elise Gilmour
The ProCreate Project, the Museum of Motherhood and the Mom Egg Review are pleased to announce the 32nd edition of this scholarly discourse intersects with the artistic to explore the wonder and the challenges of motherhood. Using words and art to connect new pathways between the academic, the para-academic, the digital, and the real, as well as the everyday: wherever you live, work, and play, the Art of Motherhood is made manifest. #JoinMAMA
July, 2018 Art by Sophia Marinkov Jones, words by Sherine Elise Gilmour
Art by Sophia Marinkov Jones
The works are from a series that reflect different moments in a day as a mother and child interact. These drypoints required firm pressure to engrave lines into perspex sheet before the inking and printing processes. This firm contact is essential for the lines I make, which are scratched or rubbed into a surface.
More About the artist:
Since the birth of her son, Sophia’s work has explored how identity is forged through family experience. She often makes drawings on the floor with her son present and his energy drives the process. This dynamic developed thanks to Procreate Project’s Mother House, where she was invited to work alongside her son in a shared studio space. She is interested in the gestures that are exchanged between mother and child and the deeper psychological impression (and disturbance) that a child makes on an adult and how this is managed and returned back to the child. Her line works to express the immediacy of a moment and rising emotion, and to capture these tangled states before they are lost.
Previous works explored landscape and conservation. She studied Architecture at The Bartlett, UCL and has an MA in Printmaking from the Royal College of Art, London.
Words by Sherine Elise Gilmour
Sad Animals
Draw a sad rabbit you said.
And I did. This is what we used to do. Each night for weeks. Construction paper. Pink, yellow, blue. You would tell me what to draw and what to write, because you did not like the way the marker felt in your hand, pressed to your palm.
Draw a sad elephant. Draw a sad cow. Make him cry. Draw a sad frog.
Draw a sad squirrel.
Draw a family of sad rabbits. Write “sad rabbit family.” No no no, they’re sad, they’re sad. You cried and demanded when I tried to give an animal a smile. No no no. They’re not happy, they’re sad.
Originally published in Mom Egg Review vol. 16 Mothers Work/ Mothers Play
Sherine Elise Gilmour graduated with an M.F.A. in Poetry from New York University. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and her poems have appeared or are forthcoming from Green Mountains Review, Many Mountains Moving, Oxford University Press, River Styx, So To Speak, Tinderbox, and other publications.
M.A.M.A. Issue n.31: Marketa Senkyrik and Robin Silbergleid
The ProCreate Project, the Museum of Motherhood and the Mom Egg Review are pleased to announce the 31st edition of this scholarly discourse intersects with the artistic to explore the wonder and the challenges of motherhood. Using words and art to connect new pathways between the academic, the para-academic, the digital, and the real, as well as the everyday: wherever you live, work, and play, the Art of Motherhood is made manifest. #JoinMAMA
April, 2018 Art by Marketa Senkyrik, words by Robin Silbergleid
Art by Marketa Senkyrik
mother’s diary (for Kaya)
2017-2018
hand-bound diary / drawings – fine-liner, watercolour crayons, crayons
My mum has plenty of photo albums – one from each holiday, one from each Christmas… When I am visiting my parents, we often look at the photos together.
I like to draw diaries. They are a bit like photo albums – they bring back memories.
This is a very special one.
It’s for Kaya.
To remind her how it was when she was growing inside me, passing through my body to this world and living as one with me in the very beginning of life
(as those things usually get forgotten with time).
About the artist:
Czech born and a world citizen, living and working in London since 2013. Marketa studied book-design in Ostrava in the Czech Republic and fine arts in Clermont-Ferrand in France before she moved to London and started to work as a bookbinder. She is currently enjoying some time off with her daughter, co-runs an independent non-profit gallery 139artspace and is developing her own and collaborative artistic projects.
www.marketas.net
https://instagram.com/marketa_senkyrik
*photo credits Dani Tagen
Words by Robin Silbergleid
From ‘Mother Time’: Let Down
All these dark days and white nights, every two hours, the milk lets down. She feels the rhythm in her breasts: suck, suck, swallow. Sometimes it comes too fast, pools the side of his mouth, collects in the fat folds of his chin. Sometimes he falls asleep there, with the nipple in his mouth.
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A diaper change. An attempt at a nap. At the hospital they said to record it all. Left breast, right breast, urine output, stool. 5 ml pumped milk offered via silver spoon. He’s so small, fetal with wrinkled skin, he can’t stay awake; she rubs an ice cube against his foot. He wakes cold, angry: sucks.
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When babies are this small it is possible to weigh them before and after a feed and know precisely how much milk they have taken in. They weigh him at the hospital daily and then twenty-four hours later, then forty-eight, then wait a whole week. When she brings him home, he is four pounds eight ounces, his wrist the size of her thumb. He looks like a doll in his car seat; even the preemie clothes don’t fit.
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In the news, she reads that a baby died of dehydration because the mother didn’t know she wasn’t supplying enough milk; she said she fed her child around the clock and he screamed when taken from the breast.
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In this never-ending now, the mother puts the baby to her breast. He sucks, swallows. The present is a mouthful of milk. In his belly, proteins break down to digest. Nutrients travel his blood stream: calcium, DHA, Vitamin D. Their bodies share time and space, linked by mother’s milk the way they were once linked by the placenta. Infants who are breastfed adjust their body temperature and heart rate according to their mothers’. Their body clocks sync: mother time. Her body thins while he grows.
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Another check mark on the log: wet diaper, dirty diaper, feed.
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If the baby sleeps: dishes. If the baby sleeps: diapers. If the baby sleeps: email. If the baby sleeps: blog post. If the baby sleeps: bathtub. If the baby sleeps: laundry. If the baby refuses: rock him. If the baby refuses: swaddle him, swing him, snuggle him. If the baby refuses: try the crib, the car seat, the bed with you beside him. Give him a new diaper. Give him your left breast. Give him your right. Count the hours. Count the hours. Count the hours.
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If there are 60 minutes in an hour and 168 hours in a week, 52 weeks in a year, how many minutes of infancy, of toddlerhood? How many spent in the rocking chair, or pacing with a baby strapped to the chest, how many in the pediatrician’s waiting room, washing the spare parts of a breast pump, the innards of baby bottles? How many on the basic tasks of feeding, diapering, bathing? How many getting to and from, pushing a stroller up a hill? She’s walked when she needed to drink, walked when she needed to pee. Her legs and arms are spindly. Somehow, minutes pass; somehow, she has become mother. Her breasts swell and spurt; she feels the milk let down as the baby wakes, hungry.
About the author:
Robin Silbergleid is the author of Texas Girl and The Baby Book. When she’s not teaching or writing, you might find her puttering in her kitchen; her kids eat a lot of banana muffins.