How to follow your creative muse with kids in tow?

Bringing back the Mother Artist Column with a broader scope of what-do-you-do-for-your-creative-soul-to-not-die....

Hi there!

One of the most frequently asked questions I get since joining Substack and being in contact with other creative parents is; How, like HOW do you do it all?

My answer won’t only apply to mother-artists but to anyone with other responsibilities aside from staying alive and sane yourself (which is a bloody achievement in itself, huh).

Yesterday I wrote an email titled:

To the drowning mother artists, I’ve been in your boat

… and I think I’d like to continue from there.

This essay is paywalled by the way and part of the re-birth of the Mother Artist column, which has been more or less dormant for the past few months while I figured out how to make it better (for both of us!).

Rather than basing it off a chronological memoir-ish narrative, I’m now bringing it back to life with a larger scope.

I want to write about this stuff, but not in a mummy-blog style. I don’t care about what nappy brand your kids have, nor will I share which ones we use in our family. I don’t care about the perfect bedtime routine (and I sure don’t want to tell you about mine either, haha!).

This isn’t about the kids, this is about you. What do you do for you and your creative work?

This isn’t about the what-you-do-with-your-kids type of mum writing, but rather focus on what-you-do-for-your-creative-soul type of motherhood.

When I became a mother I remember frantically googling for “How to be a mother and artist at the same time”, all while physically feeling my brain cells turn into milky porridge.

I felt, truly, like I was drowning.

I’m no longer drowning (at least not every day).

A few days ago I wrote about motherhood as enrichment to a creative life.

But it didn’t come overnight.

I had to go through the valleys, feeling ALL the emotions of what it meant to travel from maiden to mother before I could thrive.

You know how the Phoenix rises from the ashes?

I think motherhood helped me burn the old shit down in order to rebuild myself stronger, more resilient and (yes) more creative than before.

This analogy also makes me think about when I lived in rural South Africa ten years ago and the winter fires were just outside my hut (I lived in a clay and grass hut for a few months before shifting to a stone and aluminium house… the former was better). The fires took all the dry grass with it and I thought it was devastating until I found out that they do this on purpose every year (though sometimes the fires go out of hand…)

The premise is simple: Clean out the old to give space for fresh new life to thrive.