I am a professional photographer, living in the small town of Loviisa which is located on the South Eastern coast of Finland. I have two kids, a girl born in 2012 and a boy born in 2015. My art practice includes photography and writing, with hints of other mediums occasionally. Besides art I make freelance photography work for newspapers, magazines and businesses, portraits for families etc. and I also run a bespoke art framing service at my studio. So it’s quite hectic around here!

Maria Velasco is a Spanish-born artist who has been living and working in the US since 1991. She creates site-specific installations, public art and participatory projects about displacement, gender identity, vulnerability, and the structures of authority that govern our lives. We caught up with Maria to find out more about her roles as artist, single mother and academic and how her experience at a parent-friendly residency, made her feel whole for the first time in eleven years.

Becoming a board member is an excellent opportunity to support our Founding Director, Lauren McLaughlin to build upon and expand the work of Spilt Milk during a time when amplifying the voices of mothers has never been more important.

Home-works open call for Spilt Milk Members’ Show 2020. Deadline August 5th.

I live in a little village called Rahm, it is between Düsseldorf and Duisburg in Germany. We have lived in Germany for 10 years now. I am originally from Ireland my husband is Dutch..we have 3 children each born in a different country. We have never lived near family so I have always been the primary caregiver.

I would describe myself as an intermediary artist, I love sculpture and printing ..I don’t want to be tied down to any area or discipline.

Claudia Phares is a Canadian-born, Melbourne-based artist of Vietnamese-Egyptian descent. Using a multidisciplinary approach, she explores autobiographical events that have challenged her sense of control. Becoming a mother is such an event. Informed with mother-centered feminism, she seeks to find strategies to sustain her roles and responsibilities as an artist/mother.

With thanks to a successful funding award from Firstport, we are excited to be able to invest in some much needed updates to our website branding and marketing.

We would like to commission an illustrator who identifies as a mother to create a new membership logo and series of illustrations for use on our website and promotion.

“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 felt overwhelmed as a new mom and with trying to balance the many facets of life in “the real world”. The gallery receptions weren’t inclusive to families, although I continued to bring our son to openings while carrying him on my back in a baby carrier, the receptions went late into the night and were not as welcoming as they could have been. I was having a difficult time connecting to the arts community so I decided that I would bring the community to me and began to invite artists to install work in our house.  I founded The Hown’s Den: A Nomadic + Domestic Exhibition Space in 2014.  I chose to hold openings on Saturdays during the afternoon, after nap times but before bed times. This was a great way to connect with a community while introducing a holistic approach to integrating arts and family life.’