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From the Literary Mama: combining art and children

by Sarah Gilbert (Subscribe to Sarah Gilbert's posts)
Feb 5th 2006 4:05PM

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Filed under: Work Life, Media, That's Entertainment

nicole cooley photo from the academy of american poetsAs I mentioned, I'm slowing working through the internal dialogue-provoking Literary Mama: Reading for the Maternally Inclined. Yesterday I took a mental break from the track coaching clinic I was attending to read Nicole Cooley's essay, "Thirteen Ways of Looking at Being a Mother and a Poet." She explores her progression from the "belief that having a child would not change my life" to attempting to create a "sacred work space" where her daughter was not allowed, to the realization that she could combine her work and her role as a mother.

One day when her daughter was two, Nicole started to write poems with her, to bring her into the "sacred" space with her easel and box of crayons. She wrote that "the borders of all my old ideas about writing and motherhood start collapsing, divisions between parts of myself are breaking down."

In my own life, I've had to combine my "art" of writing and photography with my children. Until recently I either had to work in a very non-artistic field or not have money for childcare. I've made it work, although I acknowledge that sometimes I wish for hours and hours each day of protected mental space, time alone with my thoughts and my laptop. Do you combine your children and your art... or do you have sacred spaces?

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