For the Mothers who Birth Art

In honour of those who are called to mother in a different way

May 20, 2025

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An audio recording is included as an invitation to experience the sacredness held within the voice and tradition of oral storytelling. If it resonates, please enjoy at your leisure - maybe curled up with a warm cuppa tea or held within the wild embrace of the magical natural world that surrounds you.

Mo ghrá go léir / All my love,

Erica

I often feel that the life of an artist goes unspoken and unrecognized.

It’s a life called through those who deeply know the way of the heart.

It’s a path for the tandemly tender and brave.

I also feel that those who know or love an artist may under estimate the ripple effect of a kind message, a ticket sale, or being a familiar face in an audience seat.

And, I wonder. If we honoured the Mothers who Birth Art, how different could our world be?

moth·er - verb

1a: to birth

1b: to give rise to

- Merriam Webster Dictionary

To be an artist is to receive the spark of life as an idea. A seed within the creative mind. An ember burning within the sacred heart.

Then through the wisdom of your body and the magic of your spirit you create what you know before you can physically see it.

This is a path walked by blind-faith.

It’s thrilling and terrifying.

It’s generative, labour intensive, and exhausting.

And oftentimes, filled with more self-doubt than one can imagine.

But a Mother who Births Art knows no other way. She knows she called to gift her heart and soul to the world - whether or not it’s seen or received.

This path can be a simultaneously harrowing, joy-filled, and lonely.

If you are called walk this path, my hope is that you find other mothers along the way. Ones who remind you of the gifts that flow through you as a part of this calling.

Mother’s Day lands differently when yours is no longer physically here.

Over the past five years, what grief continues to teach me is that: regardless of our age we will always long to be mothered.

To be held.

To be seen.

To be heard.

To be nurtured.

To be nourished.

To be boldly championed.

(and)

To be loved unconditionally.

It’s also been challenging to learn how my dán1 is intricately connected to the calling to mother - yet not necessarily in its traditional forms.

To give rise to her awakenings.

To give rise to her softness and her boldness.

To give rise to her rooted body and her rumbling voice.

To give rise to the courage she holds at the thresholds.

To give rise to the gentle spaces for tending to her sorrows.

To give rise to her welcoming ceremonies.

To give rise to the Mother - in all her forms.

Paradoxically, at this time, I find myself longing for my own mother.

Wondering: How does a daughter learn to mother when her’s is no earth-side?

Now, the bean feasa2 of my spirit knows that through her death my mother continues to be one of my greatest teachers. My experience with her in those final hours changed me. I believe it illuminated this path for me - as an artist, as a woman, and as a matriarch in my own life.

I believe bearing witness to a portion of her sacred initiation through death opened my heart to the traditional ways of the Irish mná3 that now call through me.

But, the daughter in me longs for more time in one more phone call or one more hug. I miss our shared laughter and the company of our tears. I miss her as my friend. I miss her as my greatest cheerleader. I miss her unwavering belief in me when I feel burdened with doubt.

I will always grieve the physical loss of my mother’s presence. But in recent times, I’ve had to surrender the thought that her sisters would then know how to step into my life and walk beside me.

Death and grief are complicated. When faced with their immediacy, people can show up in a variety of ways. However, rarely do we speak of the haunting stillness that follows with fewer calls, less check-ins, and a quieter home, in the days, months and years that follow a funeral. Because as humans, we do as humans do and adapt to survive (or in this case continue forward with life).

During this time, I’ve needed to learn that the ways of my bones that know the sturdiness and the intuitive nature of women who gather reaches beyond biology.

One of the hardest aspects my journey with grief has been to let go of the expectation I had of my biological community; in order to see (and truly receive the support of) the soul family of mná already encircling me.

I remember when the heart of this piece was born. About a year ago, I sat on a call with the women of the Writer’s Knot as I found the courage to say out loud:

Where are my aunties?

Where are my mother’s sisters?

They show up in lives of others. They show up in celebration of my cousin’s engagements, and weddings, and new babies; but where are they in celebration of the art that I place into the world?

I don’t know if I’ll ever give birth a child. I don’t know if I’ll be a mother ‘in the traditional form’. But does that make art any less worthy of gathering in celebration?

Why don’t they see me?

My heart and my body know the life-changing initiations that come with creating art. It’s beautiful and it’s laborious. Then, when you gently place your (he)art into the world there’s new level of vulnerability that the artist is called to move through.

My mother rallied for each heartful offering I shared. She was always a warm face in an audience seat. So, to be where I’m at today, with her not being here, and to not hear from my aunts, to see no-one in the crowd, for the phone not to ring, or for a text or a message not to arrive, is a deeper level of grief and loneliness that I’ve never felt. And it’s hard. It’s hard to feel like I’m walking this path alone.

When I lifted my eyes they met the gentle gaze of the other women; some of whom wept with me. I wasn’t alone. My eyes landed upon a circle of mná who knew me beyond my biology. It was here that I realized the sacred bond held by matriarchs of family are not only woven through blood and bone - but they’re also known through threads of the soul.

I continue to walk with many of these women. It’s an incredible gift to be held within a circle of mná who compassionately hold space for a soul that carries the hope of an artist and the heart of a mother.

So, in the echoes of Mother’s Day, this piece is in honour of the Mothers who Birth Art.

From my heart to yours, this is my celebration of you.

For the Mothers who Birth Art

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

For the mother who births
her heart through words on the page

For the mother who births
her light through hand moulded pottery

For the mother who births
her soul through the song of her voice

For the mother who gives rise to
her heart through bountiful breads

For the mother who gives rise to
her light through the dance of her body

For the mother who gives rise to
her soul through the hearth of her stories 

For the mother who births
her heart through the sound of a drum or the strum of a guitar

For the mother who births
her light through brush strokes on a colourful canvas

For the mother who births
her soul through the lense of a camera

For the mother who gives rise to 
her heart through the life in her garden

For the mother who gives rise to
her light through the weaving of her quilted tapestries

For the mother who gives rise to 
her soul through carefully crafted sculptures

I see you
I celebrate you
I honour you

I see your hard work
I celebrate your generous spirit
I honour your tender soul

You are a mother who births heart
Who gives rise to beauty

You are a mother who births light
Who gives rise to life

You are a mother who births soul
Who gives rise to change

You are a Mother who Births Art.

That deserves to be seen.
That deserves to be celebrated.
That deserves to be honoured.

Agus mar sin atá sé.

Buíochas ó chroí,
A Chara;
Máthair Mhór.
Seanmháthair Naofa.
Bean Feasa.
Mo ghrá go léir.

- Erica

Being of Irish and French ancestry, I continue to be reverently grateful to the traditional spirits and keepers of the land [past, present, and forth-coming] of the unceded and unsurrendered territory of the Algonquin Anishinabeg People; where I was born and currently reside.

Culture, language, and stories run within the rivers and are held within the stones of landscapes. Míle buíochas, a thousand thanks, for the opportunity to live, create, share stories, and walk alongside you.