Happy Bambino Workshops

Madison, WI/February-May 2010

For the first extended series of workshops for Greetings From Motherland, I partnered with the Happy Bambino store and parenting center in Madison, WI where my husband and I were spending the academic year.  Originally it was only supposed to be a six-week series in which we were going to ultimately create one piece together about becoming a mother (there were also two additional one-day workshops on the weekend for mothers who couldn’t join our main group during the week).

We started the artistic exploration by brainstorming questions that we wanted to explore about the first year of motherhood, and then used those questions as jumping off points for photography, writing, and interviewing, both in the workshops and at home. Each week I brought in a different activity to do with the women and we would play and see what emerged.  It soon became clear that we needed more than six weeks to synthesize the material, and everyone elected to extend the series to twelve weeks.  We ended up creating six separate installations, and our hard work culminated in the show “Welcome to Motherland”, at the Goodman Community Center.

Lead Artist: Mindy Stricke

Participants: Abby Hougan, Jane Jones, Elizabeth Katt-Reinders, Nina Laubach, Megan Monday, Karly Schafer, Bryn Scriver, Tara Verma, Brijetta Waller

With: Lynn Genz, Ally Moll, Julie Henning, Sarah Herrick, Jeanne Ryan, Cara Scamlan, Lisa Stahl

Guest Artist: David Goldstein

Artworks: The Way The World Works, Average Baby, You Are Not Where You Were, Motherland Postcards, Baby-Care Basics, Unexpected Lullabies