A few weeks ago iMollie shared her fantastic idea for a photography workshop of sorts.  She invited fifteen people of varying walks of life to participate.  On the first Saturday we met briefly to discuss our assignment.  The assignment consisted of taking 100 photographs and bringing five of those to the critique on the following Saturday.  One print to represent each Prospect, Refuge, Peril, Enticement and Order & Complexity. At the critique we narrowed our five selections down to two prints to be shown at an art show the following Saturday.

I have to admit, at first this felt like an unpleasant homework assignment, something to merely get through.  It was difficult to find the time to take photos during the week and devote the brain power necessary to think about what category each photo belonged to.  By Friday (the day before the critique) I realized that I had to take  more photographs.  I wasn’t happy with what I had.  I didn’t want to take five pictures of my kid to the critique.  I wanted this to be about me and what I saw through the camera lens.

I devoted a big block of Friday to the project.  I was able to do this because Arwyn was at Aunt Banana’s house for the weekend.  As I walked around outside, thinking about the five categories of the assignment and freezing my ass off, it became more than just homework.  It was fun.  It turned parts of my brain back on that I had forgotten were there.  As a stay-at-home mom, I spend the majority of my days caring for small children.  This typically involves cleaning up messes, preparing food, taking various children to the bathroom, creating diversions and breaking up squabbles.  It doesn’t involve thinking about what shape that shadow makes on the wall or if that viewpoint would suggest prospect or enticement.  I take a lot of pictures, but they are usually of something cute or silly that the kids are doing.  It felt so good to activate those dormant connections, to remember I am more than just Mommy.  I am a creative person who knows stuff.  I used to do things like this all the time.  In the mediocrity of my daily life I often forget that I have something more to offer the world than a kiss for a skinned knee and a bowl full of cookies.  I have thoughts and opinions and undeveloped talents.

I love being a mom and I really do like staying home most of the time.  It is just so easy to forget what my life used to be like, what I used to be like before my life became an endless filmstrip of meal time, story time, nap time, bath time and bed time.  I used to fight so hard to be seen and heard and I think lately I’ve just given up.  It required more effort than I could afford.  Even as I have written this, I have stopped to make a meal, wipe a bottom, break up a fight.  It is hard to be creative when I only have a few spare minutes here and there, always interrupted.  I didn’t realize before having kids that you would give up so much of yourself, sometimes willingly but other times not.

I read the blogs of a lot of very creative women that somehow seem to take care of their children and also create all of these wonderful books, clothes, pieces of art.  I am making a vow to stop thinking longingly of this wonderful, creative life that I could be living and somehow, some way carve out those fleeting moments for myself.

Thanks again Mollie, for creating, hosting and enabling this wonderful project that has lit a fire under my behind once again.  I am really looking forward to our art show and standing in the spotlight, if only for a second.