Matrescence and Creative Practice: Interviews with Mother/Artists

This study focuses on how matrescence impacts creativity and art-making practices through interviews with mother/artists currently working in Scotland and Ireland in the field of performing arts undertaken in early 2023. Conversations with those involved in creating, devising, composing, designing, writing and/or performing alongside their work as mothers aimed to find out what it is to make art and make babies synchronously. Interviews were chosen so that each mother/artist could communicate their experience in their own words. The research design takes its lead from Andrea O’Reilly who foregrounds a central aim of motherhood studies as to articulate and theorise ‘the voice of the mother’—that is, to analyse becoming and being a mother from the perspective of mothers themselves. This article questions how experiences of matrescence impact artist’s creative practices and uses examples from the interviews with mother/artists to propose key areas within the sector which could be addressed to further support mother/artists. If performance is an ‘act of community’, the impetus on programmers, funders and organisations is to support the evolution of a performance culture that can welcome and celebrate the contribution of working parents and particularly mother/artists.