“Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.” Kurt Vonnegut
Making art at M.O.M. w/Suzi Banks Baum, M. Joy Rose, and Story of Mum circa 2014
EXHIBITION TOUR & BLOG INFO
Story of Mum: Moms Making an Exhibition of Ourselves
British mother-daughter team Pippa and Penny Best find the perfect home for their inspirational exhibition tour this December in New York’s The Museum of Motherhood, a unique education and exhibition centre dedicated to the exploration of family.
Story of Mum is a community of creative mamas celebrating the ups and downs of motherhood and sharing their stories at www.storyofmum.com. Their tour, Story of Mum: Mums Making an Exhibition of Ourselves, visits New York from Thursday 5 December to Sunday 8 December, with M.O.M. hosting an exciting programme of participatory events.
On Thursday from 5pm to 7pm, visionary FeMail artist Suzi Banks Baum joins Story of Mum to present an evening of Femail Mama Mash-Up art-making alongside readings from writers Cheryl Paley, Joanne Tombrakos and Lori Landau from Suzi’s powerful book: An Anthology of Babes: 36 Women Give Motherhood a Voice. Led by some truly inspiring mothers, this hands-on workshop launches the exhibition and offers a unique chance to get creative (even if you think you’re not), exploring our identity within a global community of mothers.
On Sunday from 1pm to 3pm, Story of Mum joins the Museum of Motherhood’s Family Day for a pop-up Family Make Date. Bring your kids to play and add your own voice to the exhibition.
Story of Mum: Mums Making an Exhibition of Ourselves draws on participatory creative activities to investigate identity: 25 short films from a diverse group of mothers describe the everyday joys and heart-breaking challenges of motherhood, each film connecting the next to a greater mothering narrative. At each event, a wall of Mama Mash-Up collages are created by mothers to capture different aspects of our identities, inspired by the work of artist-mother Suzi Banks Baum.
The exhibition’s ever-growing communal mum poem has been guest curated by UK poets Hollie McNish, Sally Crabtree and Caroline Davies on the tour so far. Mothers also complete the sentence “I’m a mum and a…” for photographed portraits, including many collected by M.O.M. this year. Multi-taskers and dreamers, entrepreneurs and cleaners, taxi drivers and secret singers. What else are you?
Creativity can connect us deeply to who we are and what we want. And sharing our stories reminds us that all mothers are different, the same, and amazing. Visitors to Story of Mum: Mums Making an Exhibition of Ourselves have described the experience as stimulating, entertaining, thought-provoking and beautiful. They felt proud, humbled, exhilarated, joyful, inspired and honoured, their opinion of motherhood changed: ‘I have a new respect and awe for my own mum and mums everywhere’; ‘I’d disconnected with how I felt about motherhood. This event and project reconnected me’.
Join http://www.storyofmum.com’s community of creative mamas in New York to celebrate the ups and downs of motherhood, share your own story, and make an exhibition of yourself on and offline.
Bios:
Suzi Banks Baum makes community wherever she goes. Passionate about stirring up jam, authentic writing voices, artist books, and mail art, she has been collaborating with Karen Arp-Sandel as part of FeMail, an almost 7 year long mail art exchange. FeMail has been featured at the Museum of Motherhood in Manhattan in a blog series. FeMail art workshops have touched women at PRESS in North Adams, at the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Lenox, at Alchemy Initiative in Pittsfield and Berkshire Art Kitchen in Great Barrington. FeMail was installed in the Kitchen of Rites of Passage at the Whitney Center for the Arts in Pittsfield in June 2013 under the direction of Pooja Rue Prema and Rogue Angel Productions.
Suzi produced Out of the Mouths of Babes for the March 2012 Berkshire Festival of Women Writers. She published An Anthology of Babes: 36 Women Give Motherhood a Voice, presents the Powder Keg Sessions writing workshops and just sent her son off to a year of post high school graduate work. You’d think she’d have more time to eat bon-bons, but Suzi is writing strong on her next book, Laundry Line Divine: A Wild Soul Book for Mothers and developing Rampant Sisterhood, her workshops on marrying authentic voice and online presence for authors and artists. Suzi creates mixed media collages and artist books in her home studio while raising two teen-agers with her husband and large messy garden. Read all about it at www.femailart.com and www.laundrylinedivine.com
Pippa Best lives in Cornwall, UK with her salty-skinned surfing filmmaking husband, boisterous 5-year-old boy who thinks he’s half Octonaut/half Power Ranger, and 2-year-old daughter who inspires her by saying YES as if it’s the easiest thing in the world. Life is a constant plate-spin of intuitive mothering and work as a script consultant on feature films and as co-director of the Cross Channel Film Lab, where she helps writers and directors to tell their stories and reach an audience. Pippa’s passion is Story of Mum, where she inspires mums (and herself) to connect and explore their identities through quirky, honest and heart-warming creative activities, sharing their stories at www.storyofmum.com, on Facebook, and at monthly #somum Mums’ Make Dates on Twitter (2nd Wednesday of every month from 8.30 – 10pm GMT, 3.30 – 5pm EST).
Penny Best lives between 3 parts of the UK. With 3 grown up ‘children’ and now 3 grandchildren spread around the globe life involves constant trains and planes. Being on the move suits Penny who as a dancer has always been fascinated by the stories each of us holds within our moving bodies. For over 40 years she’s been finding ways of encouraging others to explore and express those unique body-stories. As a movement therapist she runs creative workshops far afield – Australia, Croatia, Poland, Netherlands, Romania and the UK. Penny grabbed at the chance to work, learn and play alongside her inspiring daughter Pippa, on Story of Mum. Learning every minute about digital stuff (while holding on by her fingernails) actually loving every moment of mother–daughter exchange and playfulness.
Mamapalooza 