Making Art vs Making Babies

life isn’t fair, no matter how much I think it should be

Hetti Judah recently wrote an interesting piece for The Metropolitan Museum all about artists’ depictions of motherhood throughout history. It includes classic examples of various versions of Madonnas being celebrated in art. In her piece she demonstrates how humans love artistic, maternal representations, but rarely do we recognize mothers as artists.

Maitland Regional Art Gallery currently has a phenomenal sculpture by Australian Sculptor Ron Mueck called “Pregnant Woman.” It’s hyper realistic, yet surreal. It’s too big to be human. It’s powerful; everyone who sees it has opinions about it. I love it so much, but I pause when I begin examining men making art about women. Cue one million think pieces on the male gaze and its many interpretations.

Of course, life and its continuance is remarkable, and men play a role in the process. Conception through to delivery is perhaps the ultimate creative act, but I’m willing to bet more men have profited than women from artworks depicting pregnancy and motherhood. But am I — a nonmother — writing a piece on motherhood any different than a man sculpting a pregnant woman?

Despite my hesitancy and discomfort, ultimately I believe people can and should make whatever they want. Art is subjective. It’s great because it’s lawless, free, expressive, dangerous, incredible, etc.

I want a creative career and an unconventional life. But will any of my creative endeavors ever be remembered? Statistically speaking I’m unlikely to be the next Emily Dickinson. Concerned, curious friends chat with me about my decisions around motherhood. The bend in the road up ahead is a fiery pitchfork, black or white, no wiggle room, not the slightest hint of grey. Would it be more rewarding to leave a legacy of humans?

I have written previously about the correlation between creativity and the desire to procreate. My unscientific hypothesis is that mothers, compared to fathers and nonparents, are less likely to become renowned as artists (not that this is right or fair). Alternatively, when men have children they’re more likely to succeed in their chosen career path.

I began my “research” with this list from Harpers Bazaar about 20 female artists everyone needs to know. I hadn’t heard of most of them, and I certainly didn’t know how many had kids. Turns out, only four had children, although two helped raise stepchildren (Helen Frankenthaler and Cindy Sherman.) The Serbian artist Marina Abramovic was proud of her three abortions and said children would have been a disaster for her art.

According to the article, she said children were partly responsible for why male artists enjoy more success than female artists. Damn, how savage.

The four artists from the aforementioned list who did have children were French American artist Louise Bourgeois (three kids), British Mexican artist Leonora Carrington (two kids), American artist Elaine Sturtevant (two kids) and American artist Batye Saar (three kids).

I then found another list of 20 famous artists from Timeout Magazine. On this list of 20 famous artists only two were women: Frida Kahlo and Georgia O’Keeffe, also who mentioned in the Harpers Bizarre article. Kahlo and O’Keeffe did not have kids. Of the 18 men listed, seven had kids: Rembrandt, Vermeer (he had heaps!), Claud Monet, Georges Seurat, Gustav Klimt (also had heaps), Pablo Picasso and Henry Matisse.

Salvador Dali did not have a long lost daughter, contrary to this fortune teller’s claims.

I once organized a female-focused open mic night based on artists who were also mothers. From this I learned that not all parents want to be known as such. Maybe it’s nobody’s business whether or not you’re a breeder.

her_art_open

A post shared by @her_art_open

Nevertheless, I loved asking artist-mothers about how they dealt with kids and creating. I even asked the audience if I should have a baby. I didn’t come away with hard answers, but it does seem like women can’t have it all. Making (art or children) should be less about legacy and prestige and more about the joy, the love, the journey and the process. But life isn’t fair, no matter how much I think it should be.

If anything investigating parent and non parent artists reminded me how so many famous artists are fabulously batshit crazy. (Apparently Michelangelo lived in squalor, took lots of lovers and never bathed, so if you ever feel like an artistic randy dag, there’s hope for you yet!) Many artists have strange, tortured lives. It’s probably for the best some don’t become parents. Maybe they have something else to give.

Things I’ve been learning and thinking about this week

(If I wanted to take this Substack in a completely different direction I could explore the human right not to be born. The anti-natalist movement is completely different existential crisis to explore another time.)

I got distracted reading a few different articles while researching this piece. It was kinda nice.
- The Guardian: The myth about working mothers and having it all
- NYT: 500 years of pregnant women in art
- A 13-year-old article from The Guardian on photographer Cindy Sherman. Also a 24-year-old article from The New Yorker on Cindy Sherman.
- Also a NYT article The Non-Nurturing Approach to Children’s Art
- Austrian artist Egon Schiele was pretty cool. I’d never heard of him before.
- NYT article on how men’s bodies change when they have kids.
- The Guardian: Is Fatherhood The End of a man’s career prospects?