Today - the 21st June - has been marked large on my calendar this year. Not just because it’s the summer solstice and longest day of the year, but also because it is the due date of our second child. By the time this (scheduled) post goes out, we will likely have met her. (*Edit - she arrived early - on the 8th June - and we’re all besotted.)
My first child was a shock to the system. I really didn’t understand how all consuming it would be. I’m not going to write too much about it because it descends into cliché all too easily. Let’s just say I hope I have a more realistic sense of what will happen this time: what can actually be achieved, what will happen to my own identity and my art practice. I’m re-reading some of the books that buoyed me the first time (see below!) and my own journal of the time is keeping me very grounded.
Alice Neel - Hot off the Griddle
It was interesting to see the recent Alice Neel exhibition at the Barbican through the lens of pregnancy. I had recently listened to the audiobook of The Baby on the Fire Escape: Creativity, Motherhood, and the Mind-Baby Problem and was therefore quite focussed on her relationship to her children and the profound losses she suffered with her first two girls. I had gathered from the book that Alice made the choice to remain separated from her second daughter - that she essentially chose art. This exhibition: ‘Hot off the Griddle’, made it clearer to me that Neel had very little choice (or the means) to fight her husbands family when they took her daughter away. It seems more to me that art was her way to deal with it. It was really tragic.
Having said that, there was so much more to this show, and I really enjoyed it - her paintings are a beautiful balance of vulnerability and confidence.
Look at these hands and feet! Those blue outlines…
I’m going to keep this one short, with just some parting shots of the studio as I left it. I’ll be working on paper and in sketchbooks for the next while at home. I’m looking forward to it.
Books/Audiobooks:
I’ll be hitting the audiobooks hard for the long nights ahead.
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants - Robin Wall Kimmerer I started this one a year ago and got distracted even though I was loving it, so I’m bringing it back in audiobook form.
Maria Lassnig: The Biography - Natalie Lettner I’m a quarter of the way through this one and it’s good. The way Lassnig uses body awareness in her paintings is a huge inspiration to me, and this book is a real insight into her ways of thinking.
Nobody told me: Poetry and Parenthood - Holly McNish - I absolutely loved this book when I had my first daughter. It was recommended by a close friend and it really hits home.
A Life’s Work - Rachel Cusk - An important, honest account of motherhood and maternal ambivalence.
Little Labours - Rivkah Galchen - Another beautifully written collection of essays about new parenthood.
Hey 👋🏻
I seem to have created a substack profile - ah well !! Could've WhatsApped 🤣
Lovely newsletter / blog ... I watched the Alice Neel prog on tv - thanks for info about the separation from her daughter - so tragic and she was so shamed by her granddaughter on the prig from what I remember - have forwarded your post to a friend who has young children - she will love too - hats off to you keeping on the Art ball with a young baby ! Love to catch up sometime / my open studio this weekend and next then at urban artfair but totes understand dilemmas of travel with tinies in tow....hugs ..how young is baby now ?
Tracey xxxx