Mother's Project
Arts & Culture Podcasts
Mother's Project is a podcast devoted to celebrating the relationship between motherhood and the creative work mothers do. I'm Ariel Lavery and throughout this podcast you'll hear me interview creative professional mothers, asking them about their personal experiences with becoming mothers and how their creative work has influenced that experience and vice versa. One thing I've learned since becoming a mother is that, although there are now many people telling their stories of parenthood and women vocalizing the difficulties of balancing career and motherhood, the celebration of motherhood in professional creative fields still remains a taboo subject. I hope to shift the conversation a bit. Let's shed light on what women do everyday and celebrate the difficulties and triumphs they experience.
Location:
United States
Genres:
Arts & Culture Podcasts
Description:
Mother's Project is a podcast devoted to celebrating the relationship between motherhood and the creative work mothers do. I'm Ariel Lavery and throughout this podcast you'll hear me interview creative professional mothers, asking them about their personal experiences with becoming mothers and how their creative work has influenced that experience and vice versa. One thing I've learned since becoming a mother is that, although there are now many people telling their stories of parenthood and women vocalizing the difficulties of balancing career and motherhood, the celebration of motherhood in professional creative fields still remains a taboo subject. I hope to shift the conversation a bit. Let's shed light on what women do everyday and celebrate the difficulties and triumphs they experience.
Twitter:
@mumsmakecreate
Language:
English
Contact:
303-220-7615
Website:
https://mumsmake.com/
Episodes
Rights of Passage
7/27/2021
Vadis Turner is an artist living in Nashville, TN. Her work, in recent years, has focused on the transitions a women encounters throughout her life and borrows from the experience of other women. We met on her mother's land for this interview and she talks a lot about the inspiration she has garnered from her mother's daily practices. Charred refuse and biological materials come together with more traditional art making products to create alchemical structures. This was an inspiring...
Duration:00:29:59
Growing Up With a Newborn
7/13/2021
Daisy McGowan lives and works in Colorado as an artist and curator. Being mother to a newborn has spanned over 20 years of her life with her first being born when she was a junior in college. In this episode she describes the way becoming pregnant didn't veer her off course, but rather solidified her resolve in becoming a career driven mother. She reflects on how people treated her 20 years ago, a young woman with her first baby, versus today. She tells the story of finding new love and...
Duration:00:31:18
The Ugly Placenta
6/29/2021
Emilia White is an artist and educator who works through performance, video and writing to express her comedic outlook on life. While the work she makes explores taboo and repugnant content, her personal story has introduced more difficult subject matter, and the problem of how to talk about it through her work. We learn about her experience of loss and how she came out of the depths of grief with the birth of her daughter and the creation of new work. This episode may not be appropriate for...
Duration:00:42:50
Hope Junky
6/15/2021
Jean Villapique is a comedian, actress and writer known for I Love You, Man, IV-Effing, and Key and Peele and plays economics teacher Michelle Jones in AP Bio. In this episode she talks about her long journey trying to become a mother. After several miscarriages, multiple cycles of IVF, dealing with family death, and battling through the adoption process, her miracle finally happens. We also hear clips from some of the work she was inspired to create out of this journey.
Duration:00:44:01
Retreat Into Solidarity
6/1/2021
Kaylan Buteyn is an artist and mother who has started a movement among other artist mothers. She launched the Artist/Mother Podcast in early 2019 and immediately saw thousands of mothers flocking to the community by listening and posting their work on the podcast's instagram page @artistmotherpodcast. She talks about how early motherhood is different from being a mother of three. Feelings of isolation and loneliness, both as a mother and as a professional, drove her to launch the Artist /...
Duration:00:30:53
A Second Season of Motherhood
5/18/2021
After a long year of COVID, pregnancy and new baby, I'm back for season 2! Join me this summer for a new season of mothers finding the impulse to create after going through all the trials and tribulations of motherhood. I'll have five new interviewees on to talk about how their work and lives as mothers have intersected and conjoined. The first episode drops June 1.
Duration:00:02:25
Bonus: Birth and Body in a Pandemic
4/27/2020
In this bonus episode I learn from Carly Dothsuk, living in rural Western Kentucky, about what it's like being 8 months pregnant during this COVID-19 pandemic, and how she is preparing for her hospital birth. She speaks candidly about her mental health struggles early in pregnancy and why she is striving not to obsess over birth planning. We speak a lot about the focus on the body during pregnancy and how it relates to the focus on the body during this pandemic.
Duration:00:13:41
Bonus: Newborns and breastfeeding
3/27/2020
In this bonus episode, we hear from three mothers of newborns on their experiences with breastfeeding. If you're expecting, some things you'll hear them say may surprise you. And if you've gone through this process, you'll likely be nodding your head in agreement. These moms have some really great insight into how to deal with the emotional toil that can come with breastfeeding. I hope it gives you courage, perseverance, and a little ego boost, which we all need at a time like this.
Duration:00:15:01
Intertwined and Metamorphosed
11/18/2019
This is the closing episode for Season 1 of this project. I have recapped , in an audio essay, some of my own experience with the transformational power of becoming a mother. Nine women have offered their stories of growth and transformation to me this season and I am most appreciative and grateful for their generosity. I am currently working on Season 2 which will be coming out next year!
Duration:00:09:35
18 Months of Motherhood
10/14/2019
In this episode I speak with Associate Professor of Psychology and Child Development Specialist Venessa LoBue and get some of the back story to her book 9 Months In 9 Months Out. She talks about being in a profession where studying other people's kids for her research made her feel strangely removed from the experience of having children. We touch on several interesting topics in the book including the development of gendered behaviors in kids and developing infant emotions. She also speaks...
Duration:00:45:58
Black Unicorns: Beginning, Jessica Hill
9/23/2019
In this episode I speak with West Georgia alumna, and mom of three, Jessica Hill about her ongoing struggle with shaping her career while birthing and raising three kids. Jessica's story does not follow the beaten path. In fact, the path she has found seems to be a rough trail of obstacles that sporadically delivers epic promises and hope. I believe educators can learn a lot from Jessica's story as she presents an alternative version of an experience than what her educators may have believed...
Duration:00:39:56
Godsmacked! JoLynne Polichette
9/2/2019
In this episode JoLynne describes how the trauma of her first birth experience coupled with the empowerment of her second catapulted her into a career as a birth doula. She has also been an activist for policy change in Kentucky by serving on various committees and boards and has helped to change Kentucky's legislative policy on home births. This episode is all about self-empowerment, and acknowledging how adversity will move you forward in life, even if you feel you're drowning while you're...
Duration:00:50:16
Bringing Up Baby, Brooke Smart
8/14/2019
In this episode, Brooke opens up about how the failure of her marriage in the first year of her daughter's life gave her the courage and tenacity to launch herself into a new career. Through a commitment to the 100 days project she gained a following, started getting regular commissions, and compiled a delightfully exhaustive journal of her time with her three year old daughter. She tells some of the stories associated with the drawings and talks about how the work she's done has put her on...
Duration:00:38:01
Be a Seed, Lily Landers
7/30/2019
In this episode I speak with Lily Landers, a new mom who has devoted her life to teaching kids. She lives in LA, where she shares her yoga practice with kids in public schools and families in private homes. We talk about her experience teaching inner city youth in New York City and LA and what it took to get started with her teaching practice. She also tells me about the the way some of her teaching aide ideas came to her in those quiet moments of breast feeding.
Duration:00:36:02
... all this time in the middle? Stacy Dacheux
7/15/2019
In this episode I speak with Stacy Elaine Dacheux, an LA artist and relatively new mom. Her work reaches deep into an internal well of emotional responsiveness to produce poetic recordings of various moments of her life. In this episode, she reflects on the moments she has experienced since becoming a mother and what these experiences mean to a mother like her, and possibly all mothers everywhere. We talk about the spiritual core in her work and how it relates to her experience as a...
Duration:00:52:08
I Contain Multitudes, Annie Campbell
6/27/2019
Annie is a ceramicist and professor at Auburn University. She has a very unique experience with becoming a mother, as her son was diagnosed with a rare brain condition shortly after his birth. In this episode we retrace the first year of his life and their family's struggle with finding proper treatment for their baby's condition. She describes the way her work altered after going through this experience and all she had to do to stay in a healthy mindset. Annie is one of the most resilient...
Duration:01:05:00
#Preserving Curiosity, Justine Riley
6/9/2019
Justine is a bookmaker and ceramicist living in rural Mayfield Kentucky with a Bachelors of Fine Arts from Murray State University. She has an eight year old son she homeschools and feeds from their family’s farm. In this episode, we talk about Justine’s reticence with identifying as a mother while, at the same time, taking on the responsibilities of a homeschooling parent. She talks about her philosophies on learning and not being a rule follower, and how the two relate to her decision to...
Duration:00:56:14
Making a Home - Heidi Ortega
5/6/2019
Heidi is a Professor of Costume Design at Murray State University where she has been for over 11 years. She has two children ages 7 and 4. In this episode, she talks about the struggles her husband and she have had making a life in a rural town. Heidi landed the secure professorial job in Murray, leaving her husband, Daniel, to be the homemaker and main caregiver for the kids. Daniel just recently returned to work which was a process for the entire family. Heidi elaborates on how she felt...
Duration:00:30:12