Amy Shuckburgh's new series celebrates the intimate moments of motherhood.

15 Mar

‘Supper time in the kitchen’ pastel on paper.

My motherhood series began very privately, capturing intimate moments at home with my children, but it has made me feel more confident as an artist more generally. I enjoy being both an artist and a mother; the two parts are enormously important to me. I have three children, now aged 6, 8 and 10, and for years I did children's portraits by commission. I kept returning to the subject of my own children between commission, wanting to draw the feeling of being with them, rather than simply how they looked.

I missed my children when I wasn't with them, although I was utterly immersed when working and lost track of time. But I felt the state took them off me from Monday to Friday, so I started to use my studio time to celebrate the precious private rituals of our time together: bath-time, suppertime, story time, bedtime. These were personal pictures and I was naked in most of them, exploring a new unflattering view of my mother-body, larger than I'd ever been but happier; though they were pointedly not portraits. They were freer and looser and more about a feeling than a likeness. The work celebrates an intimacy between mothers and their children, a relationship that is physically and emotionally draining, as well as joyful. In motherhood, women can be so strong and yet frequently feel vulnerable and ignored, and exploring this has been enlightening as an artist as well as a mother.

I was aware that my children cut short my working day. I knew that I wanted to be with them when they came out of school (or nursery), but I also felt a need to work - to paint and create, to keep me sane. I still get a thrill of excitement when it's time to see them again and I bicycle across the park to pick them up, though I've often left a painting mid-way through. In a studio I shared for a few years, I noticed my male studio mate didn't break off for school pick-up or sick days or holidays. It is a privilege to be there for my children, but I also wondered if it would stop me ever being a serious artist.

I work everyday, without fail. I have just moved studios (to take over Mary Fedden's studio, British still life artist 1915-2012) on the banks of the River Thames in west London. I stop work at 3pm every day to collect my children from school nearby. I take all half terms and holidays off from painting, but I read extensively around my work, I take photographs, do sketches; I think about painting when I'm not able to do it. For my motherhood series I read a lot: Andrea Liss' Feminist Art and The Maternal, who ended up writing about my drawings for my Motherhood Exhibition catalogue. I also worked with Clover Stroud, whose book about motherhood, My Wild And Sleepless Nights, came out this month (March 2020). Clover and I did a talk together at my 2019 exhibition, discussing motherhood and creativity. (We'll be doing another talk together in Oxford in June). I also came across artists Mierle Laderman Ukeles and Chantal Joffe's work, looking at women's bodies, their private endeavour and unacknowledged labour. I read Jacqueline Rose's Mothers: An Essay on Love and Cruelty, and she too wrote about my motherhood series for my exhibition catalogue.

I can work daily partly because I have a supportive partner. Having two incomes helps of course, as I am able to explore ideas and experiment, as well as taking paid commissions and selling work whenever I can. I often feel I am neither giving my full to painting, nor giving my all to being a mother. But on a good day I accept this is the emotional fallout from wanting to be both. I feel sorry for men who often don't get to do this. And I am a better mother, a nicer person, more fulfilled and stimulated, by attempting to keep both alive.

I continue to paint landscapes and still life as well and I am currently organising a show all about my Cornish roots, I suppose so as not to feel pigeon-holed as a (mere) mother-artist (which itself is a term I feel conflicted about!). I am still making work that explores my feelings about the repetitive mundanity of mothering, as well as the intense pleasures it gives me and the overwhelming almost painful love I feel for them. But I return everyday to the reality of care-giver, at 3.30pm sharp when my duties resume, and which, when push comes to shove, is my ultimate challenge and joy. We're off for the Easter holidays in a few weeks and I am excited to spend time (in Cornwall, sketching!) immersed in my children's company. I love being a mother, though I am always full of ideas and anticipation for my next session in the studio.