Live Vibrantly

Artists and Motherhood

This post is about the artist, Ariel Gold.

I met Ariel in 2017 at open studios on Market Street. I went there to see my friend Christo when he returned to the Bay Area after fleeing one too many hurricanes in the Florida Keys. It had been years since I’d seen him or his art.

My older daughter, Lucia, who was around 5 at the time was having a playdate with her bestie, and I had a rare moment of one-on-one time with my younger daughter, Cecilia.

She was three and has always been a little spicy, and can be be very challenging if she’s over-tired or hangry. So I wasn’t sure how it was going to go or how long she would last. Especially since this was right after lunch time.

Open Studios Adventure

We walked into this funky building not far from the corner of Market and Van Ness. Some of the artists told me that it was a temporary space and that they were all going to have to go somewhere else soon. It was slated to be torn down. It’s so common, the tenuous position of artists’ spaces.

The building had a strange angled layout. As we strolled from room to room we came across my friend Christo who had some beautiful works on display. Catching up a little bit, I got to hear how things were going in his world, after our paths had diverged so long ago. He used to have this amazing studio space in Hayes Valley that I’d visit sometimes.

Cecilia was starting to get a little testy and I knew I was pushing my luck but I wanted to see a bit more art. It had been a while since I’d had the chance to really get out into the world and experience art and I didn’t know when I’d get the chance again. It was tough to do with two little kids.

Creative distraction

The room across from Christo’s was divided by a number of artists. One of them had a tiny child-size table set up with some watercolors, fun toys and paper. Cecilia made a beeline for it, plopped herself down in the chair and got to work. I walked over and talked to the artist whose area it was and thanked her for setting a table up for kids.

I asked her if there had been many kids that day, I didn’t expect that their would be. She said there were a few but not many. Then she told me that she was a mom, and she had two girls, one was a baby and the other was seven. Her daughters would use it when they came to the studio with her. I marveled at her ability to do her art, get out and show it, while also being a mom.

Struggling to find time

This has been something incredibly difficult for me to figure out. How to continue making art while being a mom and also working? After my first daughter was born, my art studio at the boxshop essentially became a storage space.  Considering that you had to walk up a janky staircase and the container was open with no gate with a 10-15 drop, it just didn’t make sense to take a baby there.

Right after I had my second daughter, I moved all my art materials out of the shipping container studio and into the storage room of our house. I brought six-week-old Cecilia, with me while I packed everything up into a hatchback. Climbing up and down the stairs carrying all my art supplies.

The girls’ dad worked all the time, so mostly it was just me and the girls. For the first 9 months after Cecilia was born I took her to work with me. I’d pack up all the gear, drive over, unpack the gear, park the car, carry the baby and then get to work. Often nursing her while working, to feed her and comfort her. Then at the end of the day, I’d pack everything up, pick up Lucia from preschool and go home. If I was lucky, I’d be able to get a decent night of sleep, if not, well, I’d be a bit of a zombie. It was exhausting. I was mostly a zombie.

How do you do it?

There was no time for anything else, and that is basically how my life was for many years. The pandemic took it to a whole different level. I was solo parenting while working.

Sometimes, I’d think of Ruth Asawa and her six children and wonder how she managed. I am often drowning with two. She would work when her kids were sleeping at night or early in the morning. It was a different time, kids had more freedom and autonomy with less structured activities, so it is not easy to compare. I know it must’ve been challenging and there was a lot of sacrifice involved.

I’ve intentionally worked freelance and part-time for many years, largely so that I had time to work on my art. Once I became a mom, all that I time I used to make art got taken up with parenting. Being a mom is incredible, but also really hard. For years, I felt this longing to reconnect with my creative self that felt like it had been kidnapped and was being held for ransom. Only in the last few years have we become reacquainted.

“Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.” – James Baldwin

Including kids in art making

For me making art with the girls was difficult because they wanted to jump right in and not hear any instructions from me, so it usually ended up making a big mess and wasting a lot of materials. To this day, Cecilia often leaves her brushes in the paint or glue. I wish this didn’t bother me, but it does.

Often I would take them to the deYoung and do art projects with them there. They have a program where you do creative activities based around the current exhibitions. It’s great because I didn’t have to worry about the clean up or destruction of art materials.

I asked the artist, Ariel Gold, how she handled it. She told me that she let her daughter get in and just go for it, and that they were working on a big painting together and she showed me a photo on her phone. It was impressive to hear how open she was. Her art is abstract so that leaves a lot of room for experimentation. It was much harder for me to be that freeform. Perhaps it’s not always my natural inclination.

Cecilia made a couple of paintings at the table and I had a good chat with Ariel. She told me that she had work accepted into Art Basel Miami. Good for her! I found out later that she also had a piece at the deYoung in the local artist show that they do from time to time. I thought that was great.

Wrapping it up

It was getting late and it was time to leave and pick up Lucia. Ariel very generously told Cecilia she could pick one of her paintings, so she chose one with oranges, yellows and blacks. Ariel handed me her business card. It said Ariel Gold, “Live Vibrantly.”

It was so inspiring to meet her and see what she was doing and hear how she managed being an artist and a mom. The next day, I wrote her a thank you email and she sent me some pictures she took of Cecilia.

“We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness.” –Thich Nhat Hanh

Living Vibrantly

The years went by and I held onto her business card, which I hardly ever do. I really liked that it said “Live Vibrantly”, so I put it on my desk.

One day, while I was working in my home office during the pandemic, I decided to look up her website and see what she was up to. It was then that I discovered that she had died unexpectedly of a heart attack in her sleep.

I was shocked. She was so young and talented with two young daughters. Ooof.  It was uncanny to me that I had also experienced chest pains at night in my sleep, and thought I was having a heart attack, but somehow I made it through. It changed my trajectory and set me on the path to become a vegan which I am incredibly grateful for.

Brief meaningful encounters

Although we met only briefly, Ariel really made an impression on me. Sometimes you can have a brief encounter with a person and it leaves a lasting imprint where you feel a connection, get some understanding or learn something. They just touch your soul somehow. I thought about our conversation and considered how to be more at ease when the girls were being creative and making a mess. It was hard.

A couple of years went by and I still had her business card on my desk. Looking up her site again one day I decided to send a message of condolences and pay my respects. I quickly received a reply from her mom who managed the site. What a lovely person she is, too. Ariel was really blessed to have such a supportive and loving mother.

I told her the story about Cecilia painting at Ariel’s little table and how she gifted her a painting. Her mom, Maria, sent me a beautiful scarf with one of Ariel’s paintings printed on it. It has a little tag on the side with the word “Vida.” I replied with a watercolor I gifted to her and she sent me another scarf. I love both of them and wear them often.

Connecting through sorrows

Like Frida and her “Viva la Vida” we also need to “Live Vibrantly.”

Thank you, Ariel and Maria, I’m grateful for the opportunity to connect.

What draws people together is a commonality and an ability to see the humanity in each other and to understand and have compassion for each other’s pain and struggles.

Instead of seeking to avoid our pain or to numb it, the more we stay with it and stop trying to run away, the better able we are to heal and to touch the hurt inside others and help them heal, too. Eventually, we can stop holding on and let it go, releasing ourselves from suffering.