Initial Proposal, that cost me blood, sweat n tears and that I forgot to hand in today!! moron

Initial Proposal Louise Page

Motherhood in art is often idealised and biased – consider the most iconic Mother of all, the Madonna – a teenage mother, pregnant out of wedlock, who did not marry the father of the child, hardly a respectable role model, yet Christian society has worshipped Her for nearly two thousand years. By glorifying the Divinity of both her and her child, Christian societies have made Her the epitome of womanhood.

But she is not the only iconic female template. Throughout history, civilisations and societies around the world have regarded and depicted women as fertile, childbearing icons. From the tiny Venus of Willendorf, to Marc Quinn’s ‘Alison Lapper Pregnant’, the message given is: pregnant women and mothers are to be revered.

But what of the women who cannot or will not conform to this ideal? Being still a relatively taboo subject, even in today’s contemporary society, childlessness is one that is seldomly discussed artistically, other than as a commentary in a female artist’s biography. Mary Cassatt (on discussing her childlessness) said:

“An artist must be capable of making the primary sacrifices”

(Madelyn Cain, The Childless Revolution, Perseus Publications 2001,pg 159)

Such sacrifices are not altogether necessary in today’s contemporary society, but it does highlight the choice many women considered they had to make if they wanted to achieve career success.

And Cassatt is not the only childless artist that springs to mind, there is also Gwen John, Georgia O’Keefe, Frida Kahlo and Annette Messager, all childless, through either choice or chance, but successful in their art.

In this new, second Millennium, when Motherhood is still highly regarded, with glossy magazines touting ‘Yummy Mummy’s’ on their covers, and fertility clinics offering treatment to older and older women, why is there still so little art that discusses these issues and childlessness? As a single woman who has never had a child, and living in a society dominated by the ‘family’, is it possible to give an artistic voice to the growing number of women who find themselves in this position either by choice or chance?

I find the contrast of emotions between this fundamental ‘choice and chance’ most engaging and have begun looking at how women, past and present have dealt with their childlessness when it has not been made through choice.

In the past, a fertilely challenged and childless woman may have made votive offerings, today, Scientists, Doctors and laboratories are the new Gods and temples to which and in which these women pray. Bearing these ‘Votives’ in mind, I aim to produce a body of work that is able to discuss, if you’ll excuse the pun, the issue of non-issue, mainly sculpturally.

With the world’s first ‘test-tube baby’ now approaching her 32^nd birthday, I plan to explore the symbolic and semiotic impact the ‘test-tube’ has on this topic, as ‘votive’ and as an answer to the ‘by chance’ childless woman’s prayers. By utilising and manipulating test-tubes, I intend to create a variety of 3D works capable of opening and withstanding the debate on depicting ‘Childlessness by chance’ in art as an initial starting point. As the work develops, I also aim to discuss ‘Childlessness by choice’, and am currently looking at the work of Annette Messager, who, when interviewed and asked if she had children replied;

“No, only Lola, a very English cat..”

(Richard Cork, Financial Times, London, 2009)