Mythical Mother 9th - 30th September

Helen Sargeant.

How I wish sometimes that I did not make work that was challenging, how I wish  sometimes that my work was just “nice”. How sometimes it just haunts me and does not help me. I wish I did not question what I do and I just did it. How I wonder what the value in my arts practice is ? How value in our society is centred on going to work and getting paid for a job, but what if the job is unpaid ? How I relate this also to my experiences of mothering and emotional labour. How I question AM I A GOOD ARTIST/ AM I A GOOD MOTHER. Why do I feel I constantly have to convince others of my value, of my purpose  and position in society.  

Guilt perpetual guilt. How impossible it is to do a good job of it all - being a mum, being an  artist. Is my illness catching. Can you catch mental illness. How I struggle to be a mother  though I adore being a mother too. My youngest son is 12 now - he does not always want me anymore - he wants to be alone - alone in his room - he wants to be independent. How this makes me feel sad. How quickly time passes and how hard it is to always make the  most of NOW.  How to negotiate the complexities of a teenage child. How to help my son to get better who is currently unwell with anemia. How to help my son when I feel unwell too - we are both exhausted. We are both exhausting each other with our exhaustion. We are both feeling depressed. We are both wanting to be better. Finding the time to write these thoughts as I don’t want to miss out, I do want to be part of this exhibition. Is this enough?  Does it make any sense ? I think it is relevant. I think this is enough…..its the best I can do.

Womb, Tomb, Room is a piece of work that I made to reflect upon my decision about  whether to have a hysterectomy to treat uterine fibroids. Uterine fibroids are non cancerous tumours that grow inside the walls of the womb and cause very heavy period  bleeding, anaemia and frequent urination.  

I began to think of my womb as this space that was redundant, mis-functioning and dead.  As a space that had fulfilled its purpose. This time of reflection also made me think about  this space as a place that had harboured life, multiple pregnancies. My children are from  two different relationships but I love that both of them grew from within the same space.  As I creep or rather hurtle towards menopause I struggle with the ageing process, the  negative affects of hormone imbalances on my body. It seems brutal. It seems like  another silenced experience like becoming a mother for the first time.  As I have fibroids my uterus is enlarged so I look like I am 3 months pregnant all the time.  In the drawing we see women who look like they are pregnant and there are angry black  marks that scribble out the womb space. The drawing in a sense is a call for help to be  heard by other women who maybe experiencing the same thing.  There is a black and white image of a mother pushing a pram in the top right hand corner.  I was thinking about how quickly we move through our lives as women. Maternal time  moves along at a rapid pace. One moment we are pushing a pram the next our children  are grown up and leaving home and our bodies are left ravaged by the experience of  ageing. 

“Don’t cut the woman out of me”, Embroidery Thread on Hand Dyed Advocado Cotton Sheet with Glass Beads. Textile lies on top of a low white plinth with pillows underneath, 2021.

Utilising a double cotton bed sheet given to me by my eldest son’s grandmother Mrs  Minsky. Mrs Minksy bought the sheet back from her Aunties Hotel in India where she took  refuge during the second world war. I wanted to use this textile as it was completely warn  out, so by making it into a piece of artwork it was a way to preserve and transform it. 

I was thinking about the bed and the bed sheet. Where people sleep, have sex, give birth, recover from illness and die. I was thinking about bodily fluids that seep into the sheet,  blood, sweat…. I have hand-stitched a woman’s pubic area and breasts. The upper and lower body have  been joint together with strings of golden glass beads. She lies on top of a low white plinth  with pillows underneath.  I was thinking about trips to the gynecologist, internal examinations, a cancelled operation  to remove my womb, feeling flattened and vulnerable.

Helen Sargeant has developed a collaborative practice alongside her family with the aim of widening the representation of work related to the maternal subject. Her work is autobiographical, it involves, researching, exploring, capturing and recording the complexity of emotions she feels and her experiences of mothering two children. Helen collects, collates, draws, writes, paints, performs, takes photographs, makes films, sound pieces and installations.  Alongside developing her own practice, Helen has been active in raising awareness of maternal subjectivity in art, and has developed several projects between 2012 and 2021, the most recent being Maternal Art; an arts publication Helen created during lockdown 2020.