Artist Mothers > Megan Hildebrant

Slippery Fish
Slippery Fish
mixed media on paper
24" x 26"
2017

On being an artist and a mom

There is no correct way to be a new artist mom. Some fellow artist mothers have told me they didn't make art for the first year of their child's life- some even stopped for 3 or 4 years before they felt ready to get back in the studio. Every artist must apply their own intuition to being a new parent.

Because my own work is so rooted in autobiography, I couldn't NOT start drawing my baby the second she was home from the hospital. I was back in the studio within days of being home- if you can call drawing at my kitchen table while pumping breast milk "the studio." I struggled a lot with postpartum anxiety and depression, and making art again aided tremendously in my ability to re-assert my own identity while caring day and night for this new little being.