Which came first, the mother or the artist?

I have created some kind of art ever since I can remember. Even as a young child in Summer, I would make botanical drawings of the flowers I saw and make collages from natural materials. Winters, I would draw my caged parakeets and enter design contests. Later, I would bring my sketch book with me wherever I went - partly because I wanted to draw and paint, but also because people expected it of me. I didn't have a personal focus. Only the vague sense that I felt best while I was creating.

After my first child was born my art changed. It changed in an earth-shaking way. My whole vantage point had shifted and along with it went my philosophy, my aesthetic sense, my priorities. Before my children were on the outside, I took a very traditional view of the path one takes to become an artist: you simply take the required courses, talk to the right people, strive to sell and receive critical acclaim. My mind was all there...but not my heart. I had no idea then what it meant to live deeply in the moment. To work from my heart.

After the initial fog of sleep-deprived, new motherhood lifted I realized I was fairly bursting with creative energy, and didn't give a rip whether anyone else saw my work. This was a strange phenomenon. My education and my mind had trained me to market, to "present" myself and my work in a way that would appeal to the buying public. When my son was 8 months old, I made a half-hearted attempt to sell my latest work, because that's what I knew best how to do. At first, it was a high. People paid me money to do what I loved to do. I could identify myself as someone other than a frumpy, tired new mother. But soon I became addicted to the hunt and bored with the kill. I started feeling bad when I was behind on orders, and bad when the sales were slow. I backed off and found that my heart wasn't with the bottom line, but rather with the creation of art for its own sake.

I believe that I'm creating art that is independant of the marketing sphere now. That isn't to say that I don't enjoy selling. I do. But the art that comes from me now is altruistic - and by creating altruistically, one taps into the vast river of collective consciousness. If what you create is from deep within you, your work will touch others in deep ways.

I give much of the credit to my son, who toddled about unaware of my desparate, angst-ridden search for the Meaning of what I was doing. By taking every last moment of my idle time, he allowed me to focus with a laser beam on what my highest priorities were - in art and in life. Which came first, the mother or the artist? I would say, in a non-committal way, that each allowed the other to bloom. My art has helped me to be a more creative parent, and my children have helped me to be a more mindful artist.