A pram in a hallway
The pram in the hall … still the enemy of good art? Photograph: Agencja Fotograficzna Caro/Alamy
Elena Marchevska
artist, researcher and senior lecturer in drama and performance
Monday 13 July 2015 12.30 BST Last modified on Monday 13 July 2015 12.33
You cannot prepare for motherhood – you have to learn as you go along. You receive advice, hear endless stories about nappies, chickenpox, antibiotics and nursery waiting lists, but nobody tells you how profoundly your life will change and how previously accessible pleasurable activities will become a torturous task. Certainly, nobody tells you about how motherhood will acutely change your career path.
Before becoming a mother I had a fairly successful career in the creative industries. I was used to long rehearsal hours, occasional touring, attending late night shows and managing the flexible working hours that are often a requirement for creative practitioners. Many will recognise this lifestyle as the norm. Indeed, it’s difficult to stay visible and present without following suit.
Yet, after my daughter was born and I came out of the three-month daze of changing nappies, breastfeeding on demand and adjusting my sleeping pattern, I realised that what was once a norm for me was now a formidable task.
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Very quickly I realised that all the shows, openings and parties inconveniently started at the same time: the dreaded “bath and bed” hour, when you and your child are in tatters.
I got tired of making excuses and started to ignore invitation emails and phone calls. The creative world felt like a lonely place. In spite of the richness of motherhood, I felt like a poor artist. As literary critic and writer Cyril Connolly snobbishly asserted back in the 1930s: “There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall.”
I am still a practising artist but have also built a career as an academic, in which I have been contemplating and researching the concourse where motherhood meets creativity. In June, I brought together a group of 60 artists and scholars for a two-day celebration of motherhood and creative practice at London South Bank University, where I now teach.
We were joined by scholars from the US, Canada, Europe and New Zealand, and we talked, shared good practice, created art and voiced our individual and collective needs. We realised that we are not lonely and that being a mother in the creative sector is definitely not an impediment to good work.
We enjoyed much lively debate and fiery discussion, but two concerns kept rising to the surface. First, it would seem that creative practitioners who are also mothers would really value wholesale improvements in their ability to access childcare. The issues of overpriced childcare in the UK are familiar to every working parent and the government recently announced a welcome extension to childcare support from 2017.
But this means little to parents working in the creative industries. We work long, unfriendly hours and many creative art institutions do not operate on the 9-5 model. We rarely hear about alternative models of childcare, which offer improved flexibility, but it is enough to look to the Nordic model, where mothers who need it are entitled to night and weekend childcare, to know that potential solutions do exist and should be fought for.
Second, cultural institutions can do more to make themselves accessible to artists and cultural researchers with young children – a vital audience group that not only sustains the cultural sector professionally, but is also nurturing the next generation of artists, patrons and funders. When it comes to institutional accessibility, many cultural organisations have made great strides in carefully and successfully running programmes for families.
However, support is limited for parents who wish to visit galleries or attend events as part of their professional practice. Imagine visiting the gallery as an artist, trying to inspire your own work, with a young child in tow. You are naturally welcome to take your child into the galleries with you, but it’s impossible to stay and enjoy quiet contemplation, while your child roams the gallery, requesting food and to use the toilet within five minutes of entering the space.
Research in this field by Martina Mullaney, founder of the Enemies of Good Art project, found that major art institutions in London don’t offer basic crèche facilities, where artists can leave their children while researching and analysing exhibitions and shows.
Why not? Such a service would have allowed me to reap the benefits of researching other artists’ work – looking, discussing and enjoying undistracted learning, knowing that my children were in safe hands within the cultural institution, rather than excluded from it.
After our conference, I reflect on this newly discovered community of artist-mothers who are calling for change. Motherhood is of enormous importance to the growth of women’s political consciousness. Surely we can’t leave behind these women’s everyday experiences when we discuss career paths and opportunities across the cultural sector.
Sometimes it seems impossible to conceive an articulated answer, but we must continue the debate and stay vocal in our requests. Motherhood is not a problem we need to solve; it is a reality that we need to acknowledge.
Dr Elena Marchevska is an interdisciplinary artist, researcher and senior lecturer in drama and performance at London South Bank University’s School of Arts and Creative Industries
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