Lenka Clayton

Title

Lenka Clayton

Location

Pittsburg
Pennsylvania

Artist Statement

In 2012 I founded An Artist Residency in Motherhood — a structured, fully-funded artist residency that takes place inside my own home and life as a mother of two young children.

Artist residencies are usually designed as a way to allow artists to escape from the routines and responsibilities of their everyday lives. An Artist Residency in Motherhood is different. Set firmly inside the traditionally “inhospitable” environment of a family home, it subverts the art-world’s romanticization of the unattached artist, and frames motherhood as a valuable site, rather than an invisible labour for exploration and artistic production.

As the first artist-in-resident-in-motherhood I aim to embrace the fragmented mental focus, exhaustion, nap-length studio time and countless distractions of parenthood as well as the absurd poetry of time spent with young children as my working materials and situation, rather than obstacles to be overcome.

The following works are amongst those made during my tenure as Artist-in-Residence-in-Motherhood;

The Distance I Can Be From My Son

All Scissors in the House Made Safer

63 Objects from My Son's Mouth

Women's Intuition (hats)

Moons From Next Door

One Brown Shoe

The project is archived in full at www.residencyinmotherhood.com. On conclusion of my tenure in May, 2014 the project will be passed along to two new residents.

An Artist Residency in Motherhood was funded by the Robert C. Smith Fund and the Betsy R. Clark Fund of The Pittsburgh Foundation and a Sustainable Art Foundation Award, and supported in kind by Pittsburgh Filmmakers and Pittsburgh Center for Creative Reuse.An Artist Residency in Motherhood was exhibited at Pittsburgh Center for the Arts in 2012, and documents and works from the project are currently being exhibited in Complicated Labors at University of California Santa Cruz, curated by Irene Lusztig & Natalie Loveless until March 15th 2014.

Collection

Citation

“Lenka Clayton,” Artist Parent Index , accessed March 28, 2024, https://www.artistparentindex.com/items/show/44.

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