How to be a parent and an artist

Today I want to talk about something I don‘t think gets mentioned enough: The challenge of being an artist and a parent. I have this wonderful Mary Oliver quote next to my desk: "Attention is the beginning of devotion." I think this applies very much to being a parent as well as being an artist. As a parent, you need to pay attention to your child (if you don‘t, they will find a way to make you).

Artists have to pay attention to their work, too. Making art is all about paying attention, whether you are looking closely at thoughts and emotions, or at the outside world. If you want to have any hope of doing well as either a parent or an artist, you have to pour yourself into it. Devote yourself to the work of parenting, or making art. But how can you do both at the same time?

After the birth of my daughter, it seemed almost impossible. My solution was to adapt, as probably all parents have to. Working for longer periods of time was out of the question. So I set up an easle with a large piece of paper, and a pencil lying next to it. Every time I walked past it, or had a moment, I made a few dots on that piece of paper. Having a baby fractured my time, and it literally fractured my art, too. I don‘t think it is possible to get any smaller than a single dot. But over time, a beautiful drawing made up entirely of dots - some light and soft, some hard and angry - took shape. It shows a bear sleeping serenely in a forest of floating islands.

Now that my daughter is older, time seems to be resetting itself slowly. I am still adapting to the demands of being a parent and an artist. In a way, it feels like I‘ve never stopped making dots, in art, and in life. However small it seems at first, every little thing has the potential to become part of something big and beautiful in the end.