The Artist Mother Studio (AMS)

“And because we coexist on a planet long defiled by habits opposite to love, it seems to me that the task of surviving and/or the task of providing for the survival of those who are not as strong as I am, is a political undertaking: Vast changes will have to be envisioned, and pursued, if any, let alone all, of us will survive the destructive traditions of our species.”
—June Jordan

Washington Project for the Arts (WPA) is pleased to Artist Mother Studio (AMS), an artist-curated project that seeks to shift the conversation around motherhood. For nine weeks, WPA will function as a child-care-supported artist residency. AMS will conclude with a mini-conference at Howard University on November 3, and the publication of a special-edition zine, co-edited by Raina Martens and Amy Hughes Braden, with an introduction by zinestress extraordinaire China Martens.

The project has been organized by DC artist Amy Hughes Braden, with the participation of three artists—Leah Lewis, Katherine Tzu-Lan Mann, and Anne Smith—and their four children, who range in age from several months to 3 years. Braden hopes AMS will elevate the voices of artist mothers/caregivers and continue important conversations about communal labor and how mothers can leverage their experiences for positive societal change. But most of all, AMS foregrounds the dependency and entanglement of being a caregiver (a loss, in a traditional sense, of personal freedom) as a generative position from which to create art.

This is the second iteration of AMS, the first took place at Rhizome DC during spring 2018.