Clare collective demonstrates The Art of Motherhood

THE art of motherhood is explored in a new exhibition which has just opened at The People’s Museum in Limerick. 

Created by a collective of ten Clare-based artists, the exhibition explores the overlap between the roles of mother and artist, as well as the creative tensions and potential they spark. “The exhibition is called ‘Stretched’ and was created by ten Clare based artist-mothers, exploring our various journeys through motherhood and our innate desire to create,” said artist Claire Frawley. “We celebrated our inaugural group exhibition on Friday (July 1), with a wonderful wine reception to a packed house of family, friends and art enthusiasts.”

Members of the Artist Mothers collective come from many backgrounds and several different disciplines. They are described as being of different ages and stages of motherhood, as well as in their artistic careers. 

“We have formed as a group to encourage, support and inspire each other, through collaboration and conversation,” an artist’s statement said. “Within the group we have rich cross pollination of ideas, this stimulates and enlivens our individual practices whilst also enhancing our wellbeing.”

The collective was also inspired by the fact that as well as being “a deeply connecting and meaningful experience”, motherhood can also be “an isolating and lonely experience especially as an artist”.

“Being an artist and being a mother are two deeply defining roles that influence and shape

each other,” the statement continued. “In motherhood there can be extreme love, extreme exhaustion, extreme loneliness, and extreme guilt, at times- these can and often do feed our creative work. The part of ourselves that is given away to our children when we become mothers can be fed back in another way, through continued creative expression of the self. There is a deep thirst artist mothers experience, to continue in their vocation as artists, despite the lack of time, energy, resources and space, it can feel annihilating to shut down the essential outlet of expression and processing that their art practice provides them with.”

Despite the challenges, members of the collective persevere and make art whenever and wherever possible. 

“They literally claw back moments, time becomes a precious commodity ten mins here, half an hour

there,” their statement said. “Self expression becomes a hard fought privilege. Being a mother and making art shows true dedication to a vocation, when there are always so many visible and invisible

tasks required of us in our dual roles. Our collective experience and skill sets as Mother Artists give us patience, determination, tenacity and a fierce inclination to persevere. This group helps us increase our self efficacy as artists and provides an anchoring and positioning that supports our artist identities and practices through the ever changing and all encompassing terrain of motherhood. We hope our inaugural show reflects some of the diversity and collective determination of our group.”

‘Stretched, The Art of Motherhood’ runs until Sunday, July 17 at The People’s Museum in Limerick. Opening times are Tuesday to Saturday, from 10am to 4pm; and Sunday from 12 to 4pm.