goodness gracious
And What Is It You Do?

Linda Hoffman Kimball
Volume 23, No. 3

The primary thing I learned while earning an MFA in Art Education was that I never wanted to teach art. What I wanted was a day job that would pay the bills so I could do my own art and have an occasional show. I was clueless about other job options, uninterested in museum work, unwilling to starve for my art. I was also single and childless, which simplified things. I got a job in a dentist's office, did art, had a show or two . . . and met the man I would marry.

In 1977 we married, and I got a secretarial job, did art, and had a show or two. These shows were not moneymakers. I spent more in matting and framing than I ever made selling my work. I started weighing what it would take to really make a career of this art thing. Prospects didn't look good. At the secretarial job, I discovered that, although I couldn't type, I had administrative and organizational skills: I attended to detail, I was chipper with the public, and I met deadlines. I craved the job my boss had, but that would cost too much in too many ways. I loved my colleagues and I loved my time with my husband. In the pie chart of my life's priorities, the career portion was nowhere near as fat as the pie piece of my relationships.

Then came the wee ones. I quit working for money and found out what real work was all about. No days off, no manual, no training. . . . It was a tough transition for me, and I felt snookered. Why hadn't anyone told me how hard it would be? All I saw were those perky Mormon moms who looked like they were totally in their element raising babies. I was freaked and exhausted and working my butt off to be the best mom I could be. Had I become a career mother? Had my relationship pie slice consumed my career piece?

Though parts of me wanted time off, I didn't want to work outside the home. As tough as motherhood was, I wanted to be deep in the trenches. It was financially difficult those early years, but we got by. I realize that for most folks not working outside the home is a luxury.

Besides, theoretically at least, my talents were suited to work at home. I found that doing art was less practical than another passion – writing. If one assumes rejection (as realistic artists and writers really should), art takes up room and ends up getting stored in your closet or under your bed. Writing ends up filed away in cabinets and, these days, even smaller on discs. While my kids were young, I always had some project or another going on at the kitchen table – cookie dough, an art assignment, a Halloween costume, pre-school posters, playdough, brochure text and layouts, magazine articles, Primary visual aids, a manuscript proposal. It was all part of the texture of my mothering – kids crawling on me and my own projects wedged in any open spaces.

At gatherings of my husband's colleagues, the question inevitably comes up: "And what do you do?" Am I an artist? A writer? A manager of a small cluster of bi-pedal post-primates? There aren't enough words to describe the journey of my being a parent or the gymnastics I do about the "success" of my artistic ventures to date. But a phrase that is never included is "I'm just a mom." I went to a book signing for Janet Fitch, the author of White Oleander, recently. She asked if I was a writer, too. I said, yes, but that I could take my kids to McDonald's on what I've made in royalties. She said, "Sometimes it's too much to expect to both write and get paid for it." That continues to buoy me!

A brother-in-law once asked how my writing "hobby" was going. I could have shot him. It is enormously challenging to patch together a life where all of the things I am passionate about get their due. It is excruciating to have any one of those passions trivialized. I also could have shot my son when he asked if I knew a certain rock band popular in the '80s. No, sorry. "What were you doing in the '80s?" he asked. "I was raising little children," I answered. "Oh," he harumphed, "Then you weren't doing anything." I nearly had him by the hair when I answered, "As far as you're concerned, what I was doing in the '80s was the most important thing I ever did!" 

The kids are 14, 17, and 20 now. I have a few books out there with my name on the spine or tucked in the credits somewhere. I've had my art and writing show up in newspapers and periodicals. And I have these three fabulous people whom I adore always and who drive me nuts frequently. They don't need mothering in the same way anymore. The transition into this new phase is tougher than I expected – as was motherhood in the first place.

With the nest emptying, I find I have time now to pursue the art and writing I only managed in fits and starts before. It's unnerving to face long, open days when there is nothing stopping me but my own fears of failure or success. But, happily, the experience of raising those rascals has given me fodder for the creative process. All the rage, delight, grief, joy, emptiness, fulfillment, confusion, clarity, and chaos are available for me to mine like creative gold.

That's it!  When someone asks me now what I "do," I'll tell him or her I'm a miner!

Linda Hoffman Kimball would love to receive comments on her column at LHKimball@pobox.com.

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