PORT ANGELES — The photographer set out on a sojourn across the country. She wanted to spend time with other creative women, women who are also parents.
The fruit of this journey is here now: “Mothers & Makers,” the photo exhibition opening this Saturday at the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center.
Minnesota-based Jessica Holleque has unveiled her black-and-white images of 18 artists in their homes and studios around the United States: mothers engaged in their art forms, from dance to writing to pottery.
In one photograph, an infant watches as her mom’s feet extend en pointe. In another, liquid clay flows around a child’s hands; in yet another a writer gazes into the distance while her daughter sits beside her.
“These are subtle, poetic moments,” said Sarah Jane, gallery and program director at the fine arts center.
Jane will welcome Holleque for the show’s free opening reception from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday. Then “Mothers & Makers” will stay on display, free, through April 21 at the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center, 1203 E. Lauridsen Blvd. Gallery hours are Thursdays through Sundays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
“A few years ago a friend and I started a community gathering of artists from all different mediums,” Holleque said in an interview.
“At one of those meetings I asked around the room if any of the artists present knew a mother who was actively working in their field, and no one could think of one.
“I asked if historically or currently there were famous artists in their field that were mothers, and we struggled through making a short list.”
Holleque was curious about this because she knew many women in the photography world who were making magnificent images — yet received scarce recognition.
“They were categorized as stay-at-home moms with a photography hobby,” she said, “or the topics they were photographing — childbirth, raising children … were categorized as women’s interests instead of art.”
In her own work, Holleque wanted to show women living the dual experience — artist, mom — with their whole hearts. She envisioned a wall full of photographs. She has that wall, and then some, given over to some 30 of her images at the fine arts center. Both Jane and Holleque emphasize: The exhibition is for everybody.
For women, “this project is not about showing that we can ‘have it all’ if we just find our way to that elusive idea of balance. Instead it is about being in conversation with women holding multiple identities that often feel conflicting,” Holleque said. There’s the “selflessness of motherhood, in tension with the perceived selfishness of creating art.”
To men, “I always ask that they too come join the conversation; for all of us,” Holleque said, “to take a critical lens to the limiting beliefs and assumptions we have put on the people we identify as mothers.”
The North Olympic Peninsula is populated of course with parents who are artists. One of them, Jenny Stewart Houston, is a photographer, mother and owner of the Poser Yoga studios in Port Angeles and Sequim. As an exhibition sponsor, Poser will offer an all-levels yoga class at the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center, date and time to be announced. This Saturday from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., Holleque will teach a workshop for photographers titled “Portraiture: Honest Storytelling & Empowerment.”
Participants will work on self-portraiture, engage in group discussion and practice the tools of empathy and conveying a story in through their photos.
The fee is $75 for the workshop, which is limited to 12 people.
To find out if space is still available, phone the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center at 360-457-3532 or visit www.pafac.org and click on “Exhibitions and Events.”
As a fundraiser Saturday evening, the fine arts center will hold a prize drawing for a motherhood photo session with Holleque.
This 90-minute session is focused on celebrating Mom — the one who is often the family documentarian and doesn’t get into many of the pictures.
People can buy the $5 tickets to the drawing via the art center’s website or in person during Saturday’s opening party.
The drawing will happen at 6:30 p.m. Saturday at the fine arts center; the winner need not be present. Holleque will come either to the winner’s home or to a favorite outdoor location for the session on Sunday.
Jane, for her part, encourages visitors of all ages to come see “Mothers & Makers” more than once. These photographs reveal the care and focus that go into both the creative process and the parent-child relationship.
“They invite us to ponder,” she said, “moments of profound intimacy and intensity.”
“Haven I” is among the images at the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center’s new exhibition, “Mothers & Makers.” (Jessica Holleque)
