MAMA CREATIVES

So this happened! I spoke in front of this beautiful crowd of creative and intelligent women about how sorrow and loss can allow you to connect with your essential self and therefore make an ideal state for creativity. I am not suggesting that grief is a requisite for art but deep feeling is; and if it happens to be grief then there are ways to align it with beauty.

Bill Henson says something similar in this interview and manages to explain it in terms that are broad and personal at the same time.  “I think that what interests me in any art form, whether its music or literary or anything else, are the same things that interest all of us in life generally. Things that shape our lives – loss, longing, love, a sense of mortality – these are the things that have inspired various artists throughout time. Really, beauty is just a mechanism that animates those things.” 

MAMA CREATIVES is a group of creative professionals who are mostly also mothers. Its founder and guardian angel is Anna Kellerman who knows that the 21st C has brought forward many creative women who no longer need to hide their families in order to be taken seriously professionally. We can celebrate motherhood and career and the unique challenges that both roles present together. Anna has dubbed Mama Creatives as the TED conference for mothers.

The group is centred around storytelling and began as the Creative Mamas shared their own stories of 'making it'. As the size and influence of the group grows, the events have expanded to include professional masterclasses and courses around health and well-being - all with a common theme of ideas and creativity. 

And of course, when a group of nurturing creative women get together there is a strong will to make the world a better place - many of the MC events end up as fundraisers. The evening of my talk we raised money to pay interpreters to help refugees communicate with their pro bono lawyers. The following weekend three of my fellow Mama / Artists organised a big fundraiser to raise funds for a womens shelter that is opening in North Sydney. As always Anna is at the forefront with energy and enthusiasm and enormous generosity.