Spilt Milk is an artist-led social enterprise based in Scotland whose mission is to promote the work of artists who are mothers. 

 
 
 
 
 
 

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Posted @withrepost • @tracymtaylor Friends- my solo project, “While I Was Away” opens next Saturday at Roman Susan Gallery (1224 W Loyola Ave.) Reception from 6-9pm. If you’re in Chicago, I hope to see you all there! My work visualizes the complexities of my identity as artist-mother. In two connected projects, I thematically and practically explore the relationship between mother and child, nature and technology. This exhibition traces the 572 hours I spent tethered to a breast pump during my son’s first year of life, and unpacks the competing emotions and tensions the experience entailed. When natural breastfeeding failed me, the pump allowed me to sustain new life, yet pumping also created a physical and emotional barrier between me and my baby. The quilt precisely visualizes data collected from twelve months of exclusive breast pumping. The delicately hued discs reflect the view of the sky from outside my window. While the sun rises and falls, daylight shifts from blue to grey and back again as the seasons change. Created with the aid of computer programming, computer assisted sewing and outsourced manual labor, the quilt is a metaphor for time, the undervalued, often invisible labor of motherhood, and the distance created by technology. The sculptural form is shaped from recordings of my son’s cries. I turn his pleas into three-dimensional visual waveforms, which I carve using a Computer Numeric Controlled (CNC) router. The peaks and valleys loop back on each other and are the visual notes of those sleepless nights and delirious days when I was attached to a machine and therefore unable to hold and provide comfort to my newborn son. Together these projects give shape to bodily and artistic tensions. #extendedpractice #artistmotherco #artistmama #mamaisamaker #datavisualization #dataviz #dataart #artistinresidenceinmotherhood #artistmother #fedisbest #pumplog #pumplogapp #artistmother #tracymtaylor #breastpump #chicago #chicagoartist #spiltmilk #makingmotherhoodsvisible
‘Du bist da/here you are/here I am/all of us’ 2019. mixed media and collage on paper @katharinaquecke . . “After three years without a studio, far away from home, with my toddler and pregnant with my #2 baby, I was finally able to work on larger images again. A fellow artist mom friend offered me her studio for some time. Every day, 2 weeks, despite a snow storm, pregnancy and daycare flus, just letting it happen was magical. Thinking of my first pregnancy when I had to quit working and painting, shuting down my studio and moving to the US; now being in my second pregancy, with so much awareness suddenly, I felt every piece is coming together: making art, making a new human, seeing my toddler happily in the studio with me: here you are, here I am, all of us!” . . #throwbackthursday to our members show last month! 💜 . . . . Katharinaqueke #collage #motherartist #artistmother #spiktmilk #rebirthexhibition #hereiam #makingitwork #artiststudio #mixedmedia #painting #womeninthearts #pregnancy #exhibition #scotland #dubistda
LINDA VAROMA (b.1985) is a professional photographer and artist living in Loviisa, Finland with her partner and their two children. She holds an MA from Glasgow School of Art and she’s been exhibited both in Finland and through Europe. She was awarded the Victor Fellowship by Hasselblad Foundation in 2012. Her art practice explores the generic through the very specific, and through her autobiographical work she is documenting and revealing the tediousness and disturbance, but also the lightness and humour that comes with sharing a life with two kids. The core of her art making lies in her need to arrange and various sort of typologies can often be seen in her work. . Delighted to have @lindavaroma as one of our artists! See more of Linda’s work on our website. . . . #lindavaroma #gsa #photographer #spiltmilk #spiltmilkgallery #vernacularphotography #familyphoto #conceptualphotography #finnishartist #digitalphotography #motherartist #parentartist #landscapephotography #figurativeartist #womenartists
Jennifer Georgescu’s work describes instinctual aspects of humanity correlating to and differing from societal structuring. With a background in painting and photographic arts, she utilizes medium format film photography, installation, and digital technology. Her projects analyze dualisms in language, relationships, mythologies and control. "I often search for the balance that exists in between these dichotomies. This is how I view humanity; always teetering on the line between fiction and reality, domination and submissiveness, self and other." Georgescu is based out of San Diego, CA. She is the 2019 recipient of the John Chervinsky Scholarship, through which she was awarded a solo exhibition at the Griffin Museum of Photography. Recent exhibitions include the Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Center for Fine Art Photography, the Vermont Center for Photography, and the San Diego Art Institute. Recent publications include Lenscratch, Aint Bad, Don’t Smile, the Missouri Review, Silvershotz, and SHUTR magazine. . We are delighted to welcome @jengeorgescu as one of our artist members! You can see more of her stunning work on our website- link in bio! . . . . #photographyandmotherhood #spiltmilkartist #motherandchild #feministphotography #jennifergeorgescu #figurative #conceptualphotography #motherartist #sandiegoartist #womeninphotography #womenartists #photographerlife #motherhoodrising #mothering
Q: What is the best piece of advice you have been given? A: I am not sure if this was ever advice that was given to me, but the advice that I would give… Block out the judgement as best you can. Your work is valid and important. Find other mothers and parents who are artists. Connect with mothers who have had similar experiences to yours so that you can share, commiserate and feel less alone. Don’t compare yourself to other mothers. Don’t compare your work to other artists. Don’t take criticism from anyone that you wouldn’t take advice from. Take up space. Join Lenka Clayton’s Artist Residency in Motherhood. Q: Who are your role models? Who or what inspires and encourages you? A: People who inspire and encourage me: Mothers / Womxn / Queer Folks / People challenging the status quo Courtney M. Leonard / Karyn Olivier / Pepon Osorio / Doreen Garner / Jessica Jane Julius Among many many others... Read more from @arinashleystudio on the blog today! Link in our bio. https://www.spiltmilkgallery.com/blog/2019/10/31/arin-ashley-member-q-amp-a . . . #arinashley #bloggers #artistinterview #spiltmilk #motherartist #artistresidencyinmotherhood #installationartist #contemporaryart #motherhoodunplugged #womensupportingwomen #womxnartists #advice #makespacetoday #inspiringwomen
"I am in my nurse's arms, with the face of a grownup woman and the body of a little girl, while milk falls from her nipples as if from the heavens." ‘My nana y yo’ (My nurse and I) Frida Kahlo, 1937. Frida's mother was unable to breastfeed her and she had to be fed by a native Indian wet-nurse whom the family hired for that sole purpose but was later fired for drinking on the job. The relationship between them appears distant and cold, reduced to the practical process of feeding. Because it was the adult Frida who had the memory, the baby has an adult head, and because she could not remember her wet nurse's facial features, she covered her face with a pre-Columbian funerary mask. Frida considered this to be one of her most powerful works and is another painting in her series to document major events in her life. . . . . #Fridakahlo #fridakahlopainting #mynanayyo #wetnurse #breastfeeding #womenswork #breastfeedingart #maternalart #inspiration #fridakahlomuseo #womenartists #feeding #childcare #milk
"On the flap of a cereal packet I came across a quote saying ‘No one ever looked back on their lives and wished they’d spent more time at work.’ As work can take up so much of our lives, my priority is to work with what I’m passionate about, and balance that time with nurturing family. I’ve a good balance these days as the family grows up, between home life and work as a ceramics tutor, technician and artist which isn’t really work to me because playing with clay is my passion..... For me, creating work is therapy, self-expression, letting go of responsibilities and social pressures by being in the moment and focusing on doing something that brings balance, happiness and healing. In sharing what I do, whether through teaching or exhibiting, I hope to create opportunities for people who engage with it to pick up on those qualities in the same way that prehistoric art has influenced me." . . Images: 'What the Midwife Said', and 'Connecting Reflex' (2011) by Sarah Rychtarova. @sarahrychtarova . . Read the full blog post with Sarah on our website, link in our bio! . . . #newpost #blogg #motherartist #sarahrychtarova #spiltmilkgallery #spiltmilk #midwifery #maternity #creativity #blackandwhitephotography #motherhood #followyourpasdion #scottishartist #mumssupportingmums #womenartists #sundaymotivation #edinburgh #postpartum #babyloss #newbornhealth #birth #rebirth #childbirth #midwife #midwifery #againstallodds
How has the experience of motherhood impacted your practice? "Motherhood. It is everything to my practice in the sense of it defining such a part of who I am; yet it constantly impedes my art as well. My children’s joy is my joy. Their suffering is my suffering. And when they suffer I struggle to focus on my work. At the same time they are teachers and I have found that listening, having patience, and moving alongside their development stimulates my own intellectual development. I work differently mostly because of how I have to structure time. I can’t spend 12 hours or more straight in the studio working. I can’t get lost as easily. It is a balance of having one foot in one world and the other in a completely different world. But, my work after having children cannot be separated from them. I am influenced by how they see the world, how they inform and interrupt my world, and my art, in turn, is intrinsically tied to them." . . VICTORIA SMITS was born in Chicago, Illinois and spent most of her childhood in Rochester, New York. She has lived in Los Angeles, New York, Michigan, and Guyuk, Nigeria. Victoria Smits is a mixed media artist and former art and English educator currently living with her family in Eugene, Oregon. She received her BA in art, English, and secondary education from Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI and her MA in secondary education and creative writing from the University of Buffalo. Victoria is a mother of four with a blended family and span of 17 years between her oldest and youngest child. Her creative practice is informed by her passion for seeing the connectedness of humanity and the leverage memory has in forming a context for living. Her background as an art educator guides the varied media that emerges in her work; she explores story, memoir, and record keeping through printmaking, painting, collage, sculpture, and installation. @victorialsmits Victoria's work 'A Doll's House' was exhibited in 're:birth' our members show last month, You can read the full interview with Victoria, and see more of her work on our blog - link in bio! . . . #victoriasmits #dollshouse #motherhood #collage #painting #mixedmedia #blogger #spiltmilkgallery