Price: $44.95
Page Count: 350
Publication Date: March 2024
ISBN: 978-1-77258-488-2
“Give and Take offers personal narratives from artist mothers at all stages in their careers who work in multidisciplinary mediums about the “ give and take” of motherhood in the art world. The collection of essays addresses relatable topics and essential vocabulary as tools to describe phenomenon all artist mothers have experienced. Readers will easily be able to see themselves in the words of the authors.”
- Eleanor Lim-Midyett, Assistant Professor, Kansas City Art Institute
Every mother artist and their partner should read Give and Take: Motherhood and Creative Practice. Seldom is there a book that thoughtfully and thoroughly exposes the plight of mother creatives and offers not only a range of perspectives but also a breadth of ideas aimed to create threads of connection and uplift mother creatives across all disciplines and generations. As a mother artist with young children my time is consumed with my children's immediate needs and carving out time for myself to be quiet and create is a challenge. It can also feel isolating, which can lead to creative stagnation which can then lead to parenting from a place of frustration. Reading Give and Take reminded me that I am not alone in my struggles, my creative desires are not insignificant, my frustrations are valid, my successes (no matter how little or seemingly insignificant) are to be celebrated, and that creating like parenting is a marathon not a sprint.
- Helen Hansen French, dance artist, educator, mother.
Tara Carpenter Estrada is an associate professor of art education at Brigham Young University, Utah. Her artistic and written research focuses on how artists, teachers, and mothers navigate the intersections between overlapping but separate roles and responsibilities. She coedited An Artist and a Mother with Kaylan Buteyn and Heid Moller Somsen. Carpenter Estrada’s recent art and research may be found on her Instagram @/taracarpenterestrada. She can be contacted via email at taracarpenter@byu.edu.
Katie Palfreyman is a writing teacher, and writer. She taught middle school language arts full-time for eleven years and now teaches freshman writing part-time at Brigham Young University, Utah. She teaches more than she writes, and she is working on changing that.
Hilary Wolfley, assistant teaching professor in the ballet area at Brigham Young University, is a dancer, a choreographer, an educator, and a mother. She has danced and choreographed for professional and collegiate companies. Hilary attended the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet Teacher Training and the Stott Pilates Mat Training and is certified in Progressing Ballet Technique and American Ballet Theatre National Training Curriculum Levels Pre-Primary to Level 5. Her work can be found on Instagram @hilarywolfley.
