First of all, could you introduce yourself? Where are you from, where do you currently live and who do you live with and care for?

Hello! I’ve been mothering and creating art around mothering for twenty one years, now, unschooling my two kids and working as a wilderness educator and explorative learning consultant, alongside my art career (because why have one career when we can have three?!) And just this month my kids both moved out, to make their way in the city! So my partner Markus and I are working on redefining our relationship, which is interesting, in such a newly quiet home. I have also developed disabilities over the last few years, and am very lucky to have Markus’ support not only in daily life and kid-related activities (like driving over to their new city abode!), but also in my art career. As I type this, he’s busy preparing my work for an exhibition he’s helping me install next week.

Can you give us an overview of your practice; what type of processes/materials do you use and what are your main interests?

I’m calling myself a social practice artist now, because everything I do is concerned with connecting people; provoking thought and growth, and social change. My work is quite varied, but usually entails some kind of installation; fractured images across multiple panels (either painted, drawn, or projected), and story from interviews that I conduct, that visitors add to the work, or from my own history. There are themes that come up often in my work, like mothering and intergenerational trauma, and I guess my main goal is always to open people’s hearts to see and love each other, and themselves.

As for materials, I work a lot with reclaimed substrates like baby clothes, wedding gowns, home paneling and stained bed linens. I like these things because they’re already carrying so much story, but it’s had an unintentional effect on the aesthetic of my work: there’s a lot of white, now, and the stained, torn and shredded look of those items has become part of how I paint, as well.

What does art/life balance look like for you? How do you balance your mothering work with your work as an artist, and how has the pandemic affected this balance?

Well, making my art about mothering was one way that I initially managed to still work. I photographed my daily life, I wrote poetry and planned shows while nursing, and I got the kids (and their friends!) involved in my work. As they grew older, however, I found I needed to cater more to their own broader needs, and my career really sat on the back-burner for the most part, while I unschooled the kids and put a lot of effort into running programs for them and other kids, and consulting for other unschooling or alternative-schooling parents. I did whatever life seemed to demand in the moment!

It might sound like my art career dried up, but actually I was just inspired in new ways. The concept of explorative learning (fundamental to unschooling) really fed my art. I created installations and also small pieces that sought to engage people directly; to provoke play a exploration. Raising children also brought up a lot of past traumatic experiences for me, and I dealt with those in my art. I only managed to have a solo show every couple of years or so during that time, but it was a really important time for my personal and artistic development.

Throughout the pandemic we were completely isolated, due to my own health vulnerabilities. My partner also had a paycut early on, and then... inflation! So we really reigned it in, financially. We took the opportunity to learn to grow food, and now grow, harvest and store about 60% of our veggies and meat (chickens), and 100% of our eggs. I mean seriously—what more can one want in terms of learning opportunities?! I’ve always had some connection to wilderness in my art, due to my lifelong love of it, but now I’m really leaning towards resilience and land-connection in my art direction. Oh yes and, post-pandemic (is it really over? I’m still isolated!), and in my new empty nest, I have no idea what’s next! A couple of shows this year, at least.

Have you come up against specific challenges as an artist and mother? What were they and how have you navigated these challenges?

I think I might have been very challenged to remain active as an artist if I hadn’t adapted my practice to suit my changing circumstances. For example the poetry practice that came out of a really surprisingly huge amount of bored time spent nursing my babies! That turned out to be something I loved, and when I found myself bedridden with disability throughout most of the pandemic, I turned to it again. I’ll be putting out a book of photos and poetry from that time in spring of this year. I think flexibility and a love of problem-solving have been indispensable for me. And honestly I suspect that’s always the way; kids or no kids. We do better when we appreciate the thrill of adaptation.

What lessons are to be learned from the past couple of years, and how could post-pandemic society better support and value artists/mothers?

The pandemic has quite bleakly illustrated our culture’s lack of regard for the work of childcare. Not only were women forced to homeschool but it was terribly orchestrated by most school systems, as they were unprepared. As an unschooling parent and consultant, I know very well how damaging it can be to a family to attempt to implement a typical school curriculum at home—and it’s even worse over video calls with teachers. That’s exactly what many mothers ended up doing, while also either attempting to work from home, or in the very few hours remaining after their increasingly dangerous and stressful outside jobs. Parents who often also suffered pay-cuts found themselves having to pay for childcare when schools were closed. And teachers and childcare workers—many of them women and mothers with children at home—went daily into health-hazardous situations for very little pay, and with an increasingly stressed-out, often beligerent clientele. And sick. They were sick all the time. Despite this heartbreaking reality that the pandemic years laid bare, nothing has changed. Childcare workers and parents in most places do not have more financial support or sick leave; mothers are not generally more supported by their partners, and in fact I think they’ve often borne the emotional burden of the non-stay-at-home spouses’ pandemic stress, as well. Something is going to give, whether we plan for it or not.

How can we change this? I’d like to say we just stop doing all the unappreciated, unpaid labour. But the first and largest part of the population to be hurt will be the children. And of course it’s the children who are suffering the most, already. I guess we all have to step up in whatever ways we can. Make noise, be the support systems for those we can, and develop a society that values everyone. We all have our preferred ways of working. I guess I’ll use my art to help push this needed change.

Emily is a social practice artist based in BC, Canada. Find out more about Emily by visiting her artist page.

To find out more about becoming an artist member of Spilt Milk Gallery head to our membership page for all the details and how to sign up.