I attended an Artquest talk in London recently that considered families as a problem for the art world, not as a problem for artists. On a local, mundane level, the art world at best ignores and at worst actively discourages family life. The predominant social and professional network of the art world – the evening gallery opening – occurs at the time when young children are being put to bed, effectively barring artist-parents. If the first three years after graduation are vital when chasing an artists career, the first few years after the birth of a child are just as, if not more, difficult.
My reason for attending this talk was because I didn’t (and still don’t) understand how to create a successful career in the Art world when also trying to raise a young child. I thought I may be able to gain some inspiration from others on how to go about this.
At first glance, the attendance of this talk was poor. I assume this is because most who would have liked to attend were stuck at home with children. There was also only women present, implying that for artist Dads this issue does not need to be addressed.
The entire talk was fascinating, realising that organisations focus on making their establishments child-friendly opposed to Artist-parent friendly. My biggest discovery at this event was what I had perceived it to be; Successful artists who went on to have children have found it a struggle to keep up to the demands of the business but have continued, compared to those who had yet to start their career feel stuck with the ‘burden’ parenthood has on the ability to build a career for themselves.
