Milk Diaries is a reflective journey through the tides of motherhood, honoured by creative practises. It is a record of mother's art life interwoven with her developing daughter's natural creative flow. This project is here to emphasise and display the casual, home-made art which is based on experiments, need for self-expression, play and adventure. Here, we value the Imperfect and the Ordinary and invite you to take a closer look at their details, as they are the simple miracles of our life.
With an intention to embrace the creative stream that runs through my home enhanced by the presence of a child, I portray its unfoldment on this website through posting in the gallery and blog. I also publish visual, written and audio pieces from the times of my pregnancy and earlier motherhood (before this project was started). |
About Me
My name is Agnieszka. I am a multiartist of many passions and mother to one Shining Girl.
I see motherhood as the greatest gift and honouring of myself as a woman. It's been definitely a transition to a more rich and vibrant life, where being present and having to compromise continue to teach me how to remain humble and fresh. I feel forever grateful for this gift and wish to celebrate it with all I can. I use multiple art languages, main of which are: writing, painting, photography, singing, dancing and working with natural fibres and textiles. |
Our Story in More Detail
In January 2019 a friend sent me a link to Artist Residency in Motherhood - a wonderful project by artist and mother, Lenka Clayton, where a participant is invited to create alongside her child and allow its presence to shape the direction of her work, rather than trying to work “despite” the child.
I was greatly inspired by the words of the project's manifesto and decided to start this website to record my daughter's daily art experiments, my own progress as artist and the whole of our interweave. Beginning this project, I was almost 30 years of age and my daughter was 2 years and 4 months. I was still extensively breastfeeding, babywearing on daily basis and loving the close relationship with my daughter just as much as my rare solo-art-journeys. It took me about 2 years since Saule's birth, before I started to make art again. One thing I did continuously though, was writing in my notebooks. During my initial months of motherhood, writing became a rescue boat on the new and wild waters. It helped me to process the inner pains, ecstasies and questions, and led me to a calm place which was independent from my physical location and emotional state of mind.
Two months after launching this project, I've opened my first exhibition and started an artist residency in Ideas Block, a creative space + cafe in Vilnius, Lithuania. The residency lasted for a month, starting on March 20th (my birthday), and gave me fresh space to express, evolve and rediscover my creative self. Before and after the residency, I created in our 50 m² apartment near Užupis, (a beautiful art district in Vilnius), where I assigned the top of big cupboard as my Art Tools Storage Space and set up the mini Home Studio. I worked in the living room or in the kitchen, depending where it was more possible to find space or solitude at the time. Naturally, I often worked alongside my daughter as well, and though it was sometimes challenging, our collaboration caused me to discover a whole new dimension of creative work. They made me more receptive, allowing and curious and added meaning, depth and direction to my art as a mother. The works we create(d) together are the testimonials to the mutual trust, playfulness, allowance and gentleness and I proudly call them my milestones in art and life. I am grateful to be learning from you. Thank you, Sunny Bee! During the winter weeks prior to the residency, I grew more comfortable with working from home and became increasingly dedicated to my art practises as mother. I made friends with the living-room desk as Painting Space and the kitchen desk as Writing Space, got in peace with that they would never be really clean and also finally created platforms for launching a few colourful ideas that I have been postponing for years. Saule was with me most of the time, (some 80% of the time) and she did not ever go to daycare or preschool. I wanted her to be present while I did my creative work. I believed it would allow her to observe the more authentic and whole image of who I was and who a mother can be. Primarily though, I just wanted to be near her, and for her to feel included in the family life as much as possible. I find it spectacular to allow Saule in my projects, trusting her intuition on the same level as mine, and following her without any manipulation or judgement. When we do this, I feel like I am witnessing the Source, the Pure Creative Wisdom. And though at times it takes me a moment, before I can switch off my control systems - the effect is always so beautiful and alive! At this moment Saule is 4 years. I am still breastfeeding, and we occasionally use the back carrier. We sometimes travel to the city with our Serendipity Booth ~ a small portable shop offering handmade goods. There we paint, sing, play ukulele and other instruments, write poetry, knit and spin the wool, meet wonderful people and enjoy the day while opening up to day's synchronicity. |
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