I am the mother of one fabulous four year old. I am a photographer, I used to do cinematography, but would rather do something that works better with having a kid, plus after having a kid it just didn't interest me the way it used to. I take pictures daily, and am hoping to expand my one-picture-or-more-a-day rule to include an at-least-once-a-week-take-many-many-more-pictures rule soon...I work well with weird rules like that. As long as there aren't too many. I take pictures on my own, and with my son, and now he is starting to take pictures too, which makes it even more fun. I have had a few shows of my photographs, have a photoblog, sometimes do freelance work for the local newspaper. I am not sure what I am doing or why I guess, but I keep on doing it. I want to have more shows, so that is a goal I guess.
I write fiction too, but i am new at it. I have always loved to read, and somehow writing is like a new form of reading for me, kind of. I don't do so well with writing with my son around right now, so I work on it when he is at pre-school two half days a week. He plays in the woods and I hole up and try and get some words down. So far it's working pretty well, but I feel like I should be doing more/working harder, to what end i do not know.
Other than that, I garden (vegetables mostly), sew a very tiny bit and not so well (repair things, elaborate halloween costumes), knit (which is boring now so I need to learn something new to make it more interesting, I am not a colors or a textures person, I am a simple plain person, so I need to figure out garment construction and design more I guess, so i can make the stuff I am interested in), I want to do letterpress work, but haven't a letterpress (looking for one though). I love to drive and travel and walk and read and look at things.
I have been a lot more creatively ambitious since I had a kid, I can do whatever thing I want to do creatively whenever I can get the time/space to do so. No more waiting until I feel like it. So that is fun, but it also drives me crazy wanting time, wanting time, wanting to not be cranky at my son when I try to do too much of something with him around and he needs me. I don't want to be a jerk with him. And even though he is in preschool now (it's a forest preschool, so he runs around and learns about plants and gets dirty and loves it) we are homeschooling, generally. The school he is in isn't really a school school. So he won't be going away all day every day soon, leaving me to do what I want, he will be here, just like he is now, maybe more. Which I love.
I live near Seattle. But in a rural-ish area, in a good way.
3 comments on who i am
Wed, 02/25/2009 - 3:20pm
I hear you on wanting more time and trying not to be cranky at the kiddos when they want us when we're doing something else.
Here's a quote by photographer (and mother) Marilyn Nance on how she combined motherhood and photography:
"...I love working in the darkroom but I'm almost afraid sometimes because I know that I'll get totally immersed. I've had times when I'm in the darkroom and my son is knocking on the door, 'Mommy?' When he was a baby I put his baby seat on the dry side, and I worked like that. When he grew up to be 2 and 4 I'd set him up on the dry side and he'd hit the button & expose the paper & we would work like that. There's a point where you wonder, 'Is this neglect?' Wouldn't it be better to be immersed in the family stuff at home, and then remove yourself to be immersed in your own work, and then come back and get back into the family stuff, instead of always juggling & apologizing, 'No, not now, I'm on the phone," or 'I'm in the darkroom.'"
I posted a bit more of what she had said in an earlier post:
from "A conversation with Marilyn Nance"
Also, accounts of how Diane Arbus did her photography with a young daughter underfoot are pretty inspiring as well!
Sometimes paper is the only thing that will listen to you.
Sometimes paper is the only thing that will listen to you.
Sat, 02/21/2009 - 2:32pm
thanks for introducing yourself. so many talents, how cool! I am fascinated by the visual arts like photography and would like to know more about them. I take pics a little but my primary focus is writing. When you do another show I would love to read about it.
I love the age of 4, well every age has it's surprises and advantages but I really really love 4 because it is the age where the pressure of mothering duties eases up a bit. and fours are so creative! themselves, all my kids at that age seemed to deeply understand when I said I needed time to write. They'd say Ok mama, and sit beside me coloring or playing quietly.
Positive Emergence Zine | seed & flame
As one person I cannot change the world, but I can change the world of one person. ~Paul Shane Spear
Positive Emergence Zine | Seed & Flame
Sat, 02/21/2009 - 2:52pm
Hi! Welcome!
I have a four-year-old daughter and a thirteen-year-old daughter (yuh-huh, old-timers - she's thirteen). You sound amazingly creative! And a forest pre-school sounds amazing, too!