Description
Discover the powerful intersection of motherhood and creativity in 'The Baby on the Fire Escape.' This compelling 2023 release by award-winning biographer Julie Phillips delves into the lives of extraordinary women who defined the 20th-century art world while balancing the demands of motherhood. From Ursula K. Le Guin to Audre Lorde, Phillips showcases the fierce resilience and innovative spirit of these artists navigating the complexities of creativity in a domestic space. Each chapter offers profound insights into how these influential figures managed to 'keep the baby on the fire escape'—a poignant metaphor for the ongoing negotiation between work and care. Explore the dynamic stories of mothers who juggled their artistic pursuits with the challenges of parenting, proving that artistic greatness and nurturing can coexist despite societal judgments. This book is essential for anyone interested in the interplay between art and motherhood, as well as contemporary feminist discourse. Embrace this meditation on maternal identity and the essence of productivity in a world that often undermines creative women's contributions.
Note: Shipping for this item is free. Please allow up to 6 weeks for delivery. Once your order is placed, it cannot be cancelled. Condition: BRAND NEW. ISBN: 9781324064435. Publisher: W W Norton & Company.
Note: Shipping for this item is free. Please allow up to 6 weeks for delivery. Once your order is placed, it cannot be cancelled.
Condition: BRAND NEW
ISBN: 9781324064435
Year: 2023
Publisher: W W Norton & Company
Description:
What does a great artist who is also a mother look like? What does it mean to create, not in "a room of one's own," but in a domestic space? In The Baby on the Fire Escape, award-winning biographer Julie Phillips traverses the shifting terrain where motherhood and creativity converge.
With fierce empathy, Phillips evokes the intimate and varied struggles of brilliant artists and writers of the twentieth century. Ursula K. Le Guin found productive stability in family life, and Audre Lorde's queer, polyamorous union allowed her to raise children on her own terms. Susan Sontag became a mother at nineteen, Angela Carter at forty-three. These mothers had one child, or five, or seven. They worked in a studio, in the kitchen, in the car, on the bed, at a desk, with a baby carrier beside them. They faced judgement for pursuing their creative work-Doris Lessing was said to have abandoned her children, and Alice Neel's in-laws falsely claimed that she once, to finish a painting, left her baby on the fire escape of her New York apartment.
As she threads together vivid portraits of these pathbreaking women, Phillips argues that creative motherhood is a question of keeping the baby on that apocryphal fire escape: work and care held in a constantly renegotiated, provisional, productive tension. A meditation on maternal identity and artistic greatness, The Baby on the Fire Escape illuminates some of the most pressing conflicts in contemporary life.
Note: Shipping for this item is free. Please allow up to 6 weeks for delivery. Once your order is placed, it cannot be cancelled. Condition: BRAND NEW. ISBN: 9781324064435. Publisher: W W Norton & Company.
Note: Shipping for this item is free. Please allow up to 6 weeks for delivery. Once your order is placed, it cannot be cancelled.
Condition: BRAND NEW
ISBN: 9781324064435
Year: 2023
Publisher: W W Norton & Company
Description:
What does a great artist who is also a mother look like? What does it mean to create, not in "a room of one's own," but in a domestic space? In The Baby on the Fire Escape, award-winning biographer Julie Phillips traverses the shifting terrain where motherhood and creativity converge.
With fierce empathy, Phillips evokes the intimate and varied struggles of brilliant artists and writers of the twentieth century. Ursula K. Le Guin found productive stability in family life, and Audre Lorde's queer, polyamorous union allowed her to raise children on her own terms. Susan Sontag became a mother at nineteen, Angela Carter at forty-three. These mothers had one child, or five, or seven. They worked in a studio, in the kitchen, in the car, on the bed, at a desk, with a baby carrier beside them. They faced judgement for pursuing their creative work-Doris Lessing was said to have abandoned her children, and Alice Neel's in-laws falsely claimed that she once, to finish a painting, left her baby on the fire escape of her New York apartment.
As she threads together vivid portraits of these pathbreaking women, Phillips argues that creative motherhood is a question of keeping the baby on that apocryphal fire escape: work and care held in a constantly renegotiated, provisional, productive tension. A meditation on maternal identity and artistic greatness, The Baby on the Fire Escape illuminates some of the most pressing conflicts in contemporary life.