Tag: Käthe Kollwitz

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Permission to pause (and I’m talking to you, sisters)

High Surf, 12X16, oil on prepared birch painting surface, $1159 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

If you’re like me, you’re tottering on your kitten heels in the run-up to Christmas. In addition to being an artist and teacher, I’m a wife, mother and grandmother. I wouldn’t have it any other way, but there are times when the daily grind wears me out.

I haven’t painted this little since 2000, when I had my first cancer. These things are cyclical, and it happens to be one of those years. I’m not alone, of course. Modern women juggle family, work, holidays, logistics and expectations, often beautifully and frequently invisibly. I asked a student recently if she’s been painting. “No,” she said, and then rattled off a list of responsibilities that would daunt anyone.

Surf’s Up is 12X16, on a prepared birch surface. $1159 includes shipping and handling in the Continental US.

If you’re like me, you need strategies, not someone nattering at you to paint.

Reframe painting as self-care, not as a luxury

Women are conditioned to see creativity as optional, something we earn after everything else is done. That’s why so many women can’t paint until their housework is finished. But painting isn’t indulgence; it’s mental health care and self-definition. Making that shift in thinking helps more than any number of planning apps.

Steal moments

When I don’t have time to paint, I can still draw. That’s why I carry a sketchbook with me. I may only have fifteen or twenty minutes while waiting for an appointment, but I can still think visually. Some ideas:

  • Sketch during kids’ naps, homework, or sports;
  • Do color studies while dinner simmers;
  • Leave a small gouache or watercolor kit open on the table.
Windsurfers at La Pocatière, 6X8, oil on archival canvasboard, $348 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Establish some protected time

Caregivers are always on call. But you can establish some protected time without feeling guilty about it. Whether that’s thirty minutes after supper or before you leave for work in the morning, everyone deserves some time to themselves. Remember to communicate that, so that everyone knows you’re serious.

Create workflow systems that reduce friction

The easier it is to start, the more you’ll paint. Some ideas:

  • A permanent workspace, even if it’s a corner of a table. I painted in a corner of my kitchen when my kids were little;
  • A travel box with everything ready to go;
  • Watercolor or gouache instead of oils or pastels. The set-up and cleanup is faster.

Involve the people you care for

My kids not only spent lots of time at the kitchen table drawing, they were free to comment on my work. Today they (and my husband) are among my most trusted critics.

Make sketching part of family outings. I painted and drew with my father when I was very young. I not only learned to paint, I learned to respect the process of art.

The Surf is Cranking Up, 8X16, oil on linenboard, $903 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Be willing to outsource tasks

The German artist Käthe Kollwitz defied the norms of her time by insisting on domestic help so she could work as a full-time artist, before she agreed to marry and have children. Like many women, I resisted hiring help when my kids were young. I regret that. A few years ago, I hired a cleaner. It’s the best value for money in my budget.

Say yes to workshops, because they create space you can’t at home

A workshop isn’t just instruction; it’s sanctioned art time. Students tell me workshops reset their creative lives because they:

  • Give permission to focus;
  • Provide uninterrupted hours to work;
  • Rekindle identity;
  • Build community.

It’s the ‘paint first, responsibilities later’ experience many women never get at home.

Registration is now open for workshops in 2026! Reserve your spot:

Can’t commit to a full workshop? Work online at your own pace:

Seven Protocols for Successful Oil Painters

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The working-mother artist

Inlet, 9X12, oil on archival canvasboard, $869 includes shipping and handling in continental US

Taylor Swift recently addressed rumors that when she and Travis Kelce marry, she’s going to quit making music and stay home and make babies. She called the idea “shockingly offensive.” She refuses to equate marriage and family with disappearance. “That is not why people get married, so they can quit their job,” she added.

I’m a wife, artist and mother of four. I worked through their childhoods. I believe they’re the best work I’ve ever done, but I also don’t regret working.

Cottonwoods along the Rio Verde, 9X12, oil on archivally-prepared Baltic birch, $696 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

That doesn’t mean it was easy. When my twins were infants, a newspaper reporter wanted to interview me for a story on “having it all.” My husband was in grad school and we were both surviving on almost no sleep. Our house was a tip. “There’s no ‘having it all,’” I snapped.

Writer Nora Roberts said “the key to juggling is to know that some of the balls you have in the air are made of plastic and some are made of glass. And if you drop a plastic ball, it bounces, no harm done. If you drop a glass ball, it shatters, so you have to know which balls are glass and which are plastic and prioritize catching the glass ones.”

That’s true, but as Debby Lee responded, “there is one other type of ball which cannot be ignored… This third ball type is made of lead: when you drop these types of balls, they do not bounce back.” Nor should they. In the book I’m never going to write—100 Best Things About Having Cancer—the first thing will be ‘getting out of things you no longer want to be doing.” It took being seriously ill for me to learn to say no.

Sunset over Cadillac Mountain, oil on archival canvasboard, $869 includes shipping and handling.

The romanticized woman artist

When Käthe Kollwitz married in Berlin in 1891, she was an outlier: a woman who did not quit working to keep house and raise her family. “There are three things that have been of importance in my life – having had children, a faithful life-long companion and my work,” she wrote. Her husband never expected her to be a homemaker, and according to Taylor Swift, neither does Travis Kelce.

Dawn along Upper Red Rock Loop Road, Sedona, 20X24 oil on canvas, $2318 unframed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Our culture loves to romanticize the struggling artist and the dedicated amateur who isn’t in it for the money. It’s far less comfortable with the man or woman who makes a living in the arts and approaches it as serious work. That problem is magnified for women artists since they average less money than their male counterparts. In response, many of us try to cover more household tasks to try to balance the financial scale. That puts us in the position of treating creativity as optional, something we can reclaim “when things calm down.” But I’m old and things haven’t calmed down yet. If you don’t do it now, when will you?

I’d still like to know how to balance everything. But I do know that personal balance is not about symmetry; it’s about priority. And our priorities shift over time.

Taylor Swift said that Travis Kelce loves her because she’s fulfilled by her art. Isn’t that the kind of love we owe ourselves too?