Postpartum Production

"When I think about my work in particular, I fall on creative journey. I really think about my creativity and what I wanna be making and what ideas excite me. But I also think about - what are the daily moments that are around us? What are we capturing as creatives? As writers, we are kind of historians of our time. We are dictating what is happening around us all the time. We are the people on the streets that are deciding what's gonna be a moment in time. Our fingerprint on the world that's gonna be left for later." ~ Erika Lee Sears

In this episode, Kaitlin chats with Erika Lee Sears, a self taught oil painter and full-time artist who makes an original piece of art every single day and shares her journey of this daily making online.

Kaitlin and Erika spoke about motherhood, art, and legacy given the current political atmosphere and global challenges from climate change and war, to gun violence and attacks on women's rights.

Erika and Kaitlin talk about:

• What it means to be both a self-taught oil painter, and a prolific visual artist during motherhood.
• How Erika got into creating an oil painting everyday for the past seven years, from 6 weeks postpartum.
• Legacies, and how the work we’re producing today will impact civilization many years from now. For example, what impact our work in creating more equality for women and caregivers will have on civilisation in 500 years.
• How Erika has been able to earn money and support herself through her art.

You can find Erika at her:

Website:www.erikaleesears.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/erikaleesears/

Please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and give us a rating. This will help us reach more listeners like you who are navigating the joys and pitfalls of artistic and parenting identities.

Join Kaitlin as she chats with MM De Voe, a writer of internationally acclaimed speculative literary fiction and poetry. Born to a traditional Lithuanian family of six in College Station, Texas, M as her writer friends call her, was raised Catholic and bilingual by an organic chemistry researcher and a Montessori directress.

She's the founder of the literary nonprofit, Pen Parentis, and the author of the fun instructional memoir Book and Baby, which won first place in writing publishing at the 2021 indie awards. She lives in Manhattan, where as she puts it, she spends her days reveling in irony.

M is deeply passionate about the subject matter of the intersection of parenting and writing, and naturally, this podcast conversation seeks to shine a light on the origin of this passion.

MM and Kaitlin talk about:

• How M juggled her writing with caregiving when her children were much younger, and how this fuelled the birth of Pen Parentis.
• Several insightful tips and pieces of advice that M has for parents who are writers.
• What M refers to as the Mobile Model; a healthier and more balanced way of viewing the different roles we juggle as creatives, members of society, wives, children and caregivers.
• Cultivating the art of being fully present with our children in order to offer them the best quality of our time, as opposed to stewing in the guilt of not being able to offer them the larger amounts of time we unconsciously deem good enough.
• The Pen Parentis community and how it supports writing parents, whatever phase of life or expertise they may be in.

Click here for the full episode show notes.

As an aside, you might hear Kaitlin's daughter playing in the background during this episode.

As Kaitlin mentioned earlier, she was literally doing what MM De Voe discusses in her book. This episode was recorded right after school was on break and Kaitlin’s 6 year old daughter, C, was in the room; she contributed a little bit to the conversation as you'll hear. Be sure to stay to the end of the episode for her take on timers.

How about you? What do you think about timers for creative work?

Let us know by sending an email to [email protected]

“Motherhood makes us all so insecure and vulnerable as it is. It's just an innately vulnerable experience that's just rife for feeling bad about yourself or feeling unsure about your choices. We're just ‘onslaughted’ with so many people—most of them strangers—that we're just constantly consuming other people's renditions of motherhood.

And it's dizzying in terms of feeling comfortable and solid with your own decisions.”

~ Sara Petersen

Momfluencers on social media are pervasive in today's culture, with focuses on everything from fashion, to parenting philosophies, to humor. It's interesting to see the impact of performative motherhood, both on practicing artists and mothers, how we present our private and public selves. And there's a lot to learn from Sara Petersen’s work, especially as it holds a mirror to American motherhood in this particular socio-historical moment.

Join Kaitlin as she talks with Sara, a writer based in New Hampshire, about momfluencers, as well as how she became the writer and mother that she is today.

Sara’s first book, Momfluenced examines the performance of motherhood through the multi-layered phenomenon of momfluencer culture, what this reveals about the texture of modern motherhood and what we might learn from it. Momfluenced will be coming out in 2023 with Beacon Press.

Sara and Kaitlin talk about:

• How Sara became a writer and how she manages to juggle writing with motherhood.
• The early life experiences that informed Sara’s views and fantasies of what motherhood should look like, in juxtaposition with the performative aspects of motherhood that she now unpacks in her writing.
• Momfluencer culture and it’s different faucets and trends
• The broad spectrum of postpartum mood disorders and intense changes we experience after birth, plus how they are habitually glossed over and downplayed.

Find out more about Sara:

Website: http://sara-petersen.com/ 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/slouisepetersen/?hl=en 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/slouisepetersen 

In many of these episodes, we've covered the privilege of moms pursuing creative work who have the resources to do so without working a traditional 9 to 5 out-of-the-home job.

If you're a creative parent building an artistic life while also caregiving and working an unrelated 9 to 5 job, we'd love to hear from you and how you're able to find creative moments in the mayhem of your daily life and work.

Drop us a line [email protected]

Related resources:

• Sara Petersen's recent newsletter about her takeaways from this podcast interview: https://sarapetersen.substack.com/p/babies-dont-need-cardigans?utm_source=email
• Listen to Sarah Chaves in Episode 1 as she reflects on her juggle of creative pursuits with motherhood and a 9-to-5: https://www.postpartumproduction.com/episodes/01
• Here’s Emily Henderson’s blog: https://stylebyemilyhenderson.com/all-posts 
• Naomi Davis on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/taza 
• More about Writer and poet Kate Baer: https://www.katebaer.com/

“How fun would it be to have a space where the kids could be kids and we could mother them, but we could also do our creative work with each other?! I don't know what that would look like, but it sounds like a world that I would love to inhabit.” 

~ Heather Powell

In this episode, Kaitlin talks with Heather Powell about the guilt that comes to surface when balancing motherhood and more specifically, about how she balances her value of creating musical/live art with that of being a parent to one child, with another on the way at the time of this recording.

Heather is an orchestral violinist who works as a chamber musician and soloist. She is also the lead producer of “Before You Had A Name,” a unique live performance collaboration which marries chamber music, classical dance, and visual art to explore the theme of maternity, that Kaitlin spoke about in episode 6 with choreographer, Dani Rowe, who worked with Heather on that project. 

Heather and Kaitlin talk about:

• How Heather’s identity as a person and an artist shifted after having a child
• Her struggle to justify the importance of being an artist when you have someone who needs you present all the time.
• Before You Had a Name, Heather’s collaborative project with Choreographer Dani Rowe (also a previous guest on the Postpartum Production podcast).
• Heather’s musings and exploration of the idea of bringing our children to work as an integral value in the absence of capitalism.
• Heather’s definitions of creativity and postpartum.

—— In our conversation, like many of these conversations with artists that I’ve had, Heather mentioned at first that she finds it hard to justify her creative pursuits while mothering. And at the same time, she answered the importance of keeping creative pursuits intact twice in this conversation when she said, first, creativity is fundamentally human. And next, Creativity is connecting with your soul and surroundings.

What is creativity to you? I’d love to hear from you. Send us an email: [email protected] ——

~ Kaitlin Solimine. Host & Producer.

You can link up with Heather through her:

Website: https://www.heather-violin.com/ 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heatherpower.violin/ 

“Becoming a mother gave me this drive and confidence. I felt like I had a voice and that I felt ready to be that person that was at the front of the room, having those ideas, using my imagination, and attempting to communicate that to a whole room of dancers.”

~ Dani Rowe



Kaitlin talks with Choreographer and filmmaker, Dani Rowe about her transition to motherhood and how that impacted her career as a whole. Dani started out as a dancer from very early on in her life, with her first professional role at age 17. From 2001-2015, she was a Principal Dancer with the Australian Ballet and Houston Ballet, and also danced with the prestigious Nederlands Dans Theater.

After her daughter was born, having moved to the States with her husband (also a dancer), Dani pursued choreography and became even more dedicated to dance, though in a different way. She has created works for San Francisco Ballet, Nederlands Dans Theater’s SWITCH program, and Royal New Zealand Ballet, to name a few. 

During the pandemic, her work shifted to include filmmaking, which you can see on her website.

Dani and Kaitlin talk about:

• Dani’s transition from dancer, to mother and choreographer.
• Before You Had a Name, a unique collaborative project between Dani, violinist and upcoming guest on this podcast Heather Powell, and dancer & choreographer Sarah van Patten.
• The unfavorable effect that pregnancy often has on female dancers' careers, an outrageous imbalance that inarguably stems from patriarchal bias, and one that the very foundation of Before You Had a Name challenged from the get go.
• The juggle between motherhood and Dani’s choreography work.
• The concept of invisible work, how that resonates with Dani, and the importance and value of making space for creative ideas.

Related resources:

• More about Before You Had a Name:https://www.daniellerowe.net/#/beforeyouhadaname/
• More about Violinist Heather Powell:https://www.heather-violin.com/bio
• More about Dancer Sarah Van Patten:@sarah.vanpatten
• To find out more about flow, read the book and research by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and give us a rating. This will help us reach more listeners like you who are navigating the joys and pitfalls of artistic and parenting identities.

You can find Dani on her:

Website:https://www.daniellerowe.net/

Instagram: _danirowe_

As writers, we are always bringing so much into the work that is not just that time that you're sitting at your desk, or wherever it is that you work.

Join us as Kaitlin talks with Vanessa Hua, an award-winning columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, and the author of the national bestseller A River of Stars (https://www.amazon.com/River-Stars-Novel-Vanessa-Hua/dp/0399178783). She wrote, and most recently published a novel Forbidden City (http://www.vanessahua.com/forbidden-city ).

Vanessa and Kaitlin met in 2009 at the Breadloaf Writers conference in Middlebury, Vermont, and continued their writerly friendship in LA, where they were both living at the time.

You can expect to hear all about the new novel, Forbidden City, the inspiration behind it, and Vanessa’s tips on how to write a successful novel while juggling motherhood and other care responsibilities.

Vanessa and Kaitlin talk about:

• The mental shifts and practical processes Vanessa puts in place to help her be more centred & intentional about her writing while juggling the many competing demands and distractions in her life as a mother, wife, daughter, columnist, teacher, sister, friend, etc.
• The significant impact that our lived experiences have on our practice as writers and creatives; seeing the work we do through this lens helps us reframe our interaction with the world as valid, valuable, and ‘productive’.
• How Vanessa navigates the private and public in her work, especially when she's both a novelist and a journalist, which require different hats and different sets of writing tools.
• …and of course, what postpartum and productivity mean to Vanessa.

Visit our website at postpartumproduction.com for the full show notes.

Please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and give us a rating. This will help us reach more listeners like you who are navigating the joys and pitfalls of artistic and parenting identities.

You can find Vanessa at her:

Website: http://www.vanessahua.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mononoke97/

And check out her new book, Forbidden City: http://www.vanessahua.com/forbidden-city

For regular updates:

Visit our website: http://postpartumproduction.com/

Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/postpartumproductionpodcast/

Subscribe to our podcasts newsletter: https://postpartumproduction.substack.com

In this episode, Kaitlin talks with K. Lorraine Graham about the process—versus the production—of art, and the unfinished work of art and parenting. They also delve into what it means to be forever in postpartum.

Lorraine makes poems and texts that sometimes manifest as drawings, games and performances. She is the author of The Rest Is Censored, Terminal Humming and a recent chaplet of new work from Belladonna. Her work appears in Flarf: An Anthology of Flarf, Omniverse, and Postmodern Culture.

Lorraine and Kaitlin talk about:

• How the different phases of depression/depressive moments she goes through play into her identity as an artist and her role as a mother.
• Navigating the practice of actively challenging & defying the false expectations faced by women in general, and creative mothers in particular, most of which are steeped in gender and marital heteronormative norms.
• The endlessly generative, but unfinished nature of both parenting and creative practice.
• The sense of liberation and boldness that postpartum, middle age, and motherhood often afford us, especially as artists and creatives.

Please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and give us a rating. This will help us reach more listeners like you who are navigating the joys and pitfalls of artistic and parenting identities.

You can find K Lorraine Graham at her:

Website: https://klorrainegraham.com/

Instagram:@klorrainegraham

For regular updates:

Visit our website: postpartumproduction.com

Follow us on Instagram: @postpartumproductionpodcast (https://www.instagram.com/postpartumproductionpodcast/)

Subscribe to our podcasts newsletter on Substack: https://postpartumproduction.substack.com

In part 2 of this 2-part episode with Katherine Duclos, Kaitlin and Katherine talk about Katherine’s relationship with  her neurodivergent son, and how his diagnosis has shone a light on who she is as a person, a mother, and an artist.

Katherine and Kaitlin talk about:

• An important aspect of motherhood that is inherent in the role; the ability to put others needs before ours, a theme that runs through every mother’s life, but is in conflict with the balancing of our professional and parenting identities.
• Her son’s neurodivergence and the impact it has on the way he views the world, especially through his art. Katherine also shares her own perspective and relationship with neurodivergence.
• What the words ‘postpartum’ and ‘production’ mean to Katherine, and how they’re intersecting in her life at home.

Find out more about Katherine and her art through:

Her website: https://www.katherineduclos.com/sculpture-2022 

Her instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katherine_duclos_rose/ 

Related resources:

• Listen to Part 1 of this episode with Katherine: https://www.postpartumproduction.com/episodes/03/1  
• Have a look at and find out more about Katherine’s sculptures and art: https://www.katherineduclos.com/sculpture-2022

Please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and give us a rating. This will help us reach more listeners like you who are navigating the joys and pitfalls of artistic and parenting identities.

For regular updates:

Visit our website: http://postpartumproduction.com 

Follow us on Instagram: @postpartumproductionpodcast https://www.instagram.com/postpartumproductionpodcast/ 

Subscribe to our podcasts newsletter on Substack: https://postpartumproduction.substack.com

In this episode, Kaitlin talks with Katherine Duclos. A New England native that Kaitlin has known since their high-school days, Katherine is a prolific artist who received her MFA in Painting and Drawing from Pratt Institute - Brooklyn, NY in 2012. She then moved with her family from New York City to Vancouver, BC where she maintains an active multi-media studio practice delving into concepts of motherhood, identity, neurodivergence, materiality, and more. 

Episode 3 is a 2-part installation, and in this first part, Katherine and Kaitlin talk about:

• How Katherine has navigated her growth as an artist through the different phases of her life, especially the stark contrast between her life before and after motherhood.
• What drove Katherine to start her Low Supply project, for which she made art using what she referred to as artifacts of breastfeeding. (Did you know breast pumps cannot be resold on Facebook? We didn’t!)
• Katherine’s shifting art practice as her personal relationship to breastfeeding changes. 
• Capitalist society and the expectations on mothers to produce something meaningful, as well as the critical importance larger communities have on breastfeeding and early caregiving support.

Follow this link for the complete show notes: postpartumproduction.com

Related resources:

• Check out Katherine’s Low Supply Project:https://www.katherineduclos.com/lowsupply
• The Low Supply Project Statement:https://www.katherineduclos.com/lowsupplystatement 
• The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, La Leche League https://www.llli.org/resources/womanly-art-breastfeeding/
• To The New Mum Quietly Suffering From Breastfeeding Grief - Marternal Mental Health Awareness, HuffPost https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/holly-leppard/to-the-new-mum-quietly-su_b_16512266.html

Please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and give us a rating. This will help us reach more listeners like you who are navigating the joys and pitfalls of artistic and parenting identities.

Find out more about Katherine and her art through:

Her website: https://www.katherineduclos.com/sculpture-2022 

Her instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katherine_duclos_rose/ 

For regular updates:

Visit our website: http://postpartumproduction.com 

Follow us on Instagram: @postpartumproductionpodcast https://www.instagram.com/postpartumproductionpodcast/ 

Subscribe to our podcasts newsletter on Substack: https://postpartumproduction.substack.com

"I've heard the expression that people are cracked open when they give birth, and for me, I think I just felt so jarred by this birth that happened in a way that I didn't understand and wanted to make sense of. I felt like there were a lot of things that happened in my personal life at the time that were a lot for me to hold inside. And since I was a young child and could write, that's been the way that I am able to make sense of what's happening in my life. And so it was just a therapeutic thing."

 ~ Jackie Leonard

In this episode, Kaitlin talks with Jackie Leonard, Founder of Motherscope and host of The Motherscope Podcast. Jackie is a lifelong writer and Southern California native now based in Oregon, whose early experiences of motherhood acted as a catalyst for the birth of Motherscope; a community of moms who inspire and uplift one another by writing and sharing their own stories.

Kaitlin and Jackie were first connected by a mutual friend for Motherscope’s Issue 4: Use Your Own Motherhood, where Kaitlin wrote Tandem – a piece about tandem nursing. Kaitlin is a regular contributor to the Motherscope Journal to this day.

We’re excited to see what you glean from Jackie’s insights on how she's navigated writing and motherhood, and how community is such a critical piece of that puzzle. 

Jackie and Kaitlin talk about:

• The genesis of Motherscope, how old Jackie’s kids were when it started, and how she’s navigated creativity and her postpartum journey.
• The juxtaposition between the relentless role of taking care of and feeding a low-birth newborn while her own battered body healed - without much help or support - AND and the busy-ness of an active mind that just wanted to be ‘productive’ and creative.
• The value of her earlier postpartum solitude, and what drove her to create community.
• Jackie’s perspective and definition of postpartum and creativity.

For regular updates:

Visit our website: postpartumproduction.com

Follow us on Instagram: @postpartumproductionpodcast

Subscribe to our podcasts newsletter on Substack:

https://postpartumproduction.substack.com