So I asked my artist friends who happen to be parents (or parents who happen to be artists), how they think their life as an artist affects their life with their kids. I’ll post the answers over the next week or so.
A good friend who’s a photographer writes that her kids
…actually like that [we] are artists. Sure, they complain about us all the time, but that’s sort of their job. I can’t imagine they’d think I was any more or less of a loser if I were a bank teller or a dog groomer. The difference is that they know we work days, nights, and weekends – we are always on. We also won’t stop and retire at 65.
And her husband, also a photographer, writes that he thinks their kids
… are certainly both sensitive to their surrounding conditions because of who we are. How many children would call their parents from the school bus to tell them that the light was nice on the parkway?
As you know I work late a lot – tonight in fact – but like you, I put that down to being self-employed and the business in general. [My son] was aware very early on that I never really considered what I do to be a “job”. He told me that he didn’t want me to go to the studio, but that he was happy because he saw that I love what I do,