INSTALLATION OF LABOR: MOTHERHOOD & ART IN 2020- Mullennix Bridge Gallery

During the course of the exhibition, the University Art Museum at New Mexico State University further explored motherhood through the lens of our students at NMSU and the regional community of Southern New Mexico in the Mullennix Bridge Gallery. As part of the exhibition Labor: Motherhood & Art in 2020, NMSU Department of Art Master of Fine Arts students and artist-mothers Katrina Chandler and Maggie Day applied to and took part in Lenka Clayton’s An Artist Residency in Motherhood – a self-directed, open-source, artist residency that empowers and inspires artists who are also mothers. From August 2019 – January 2020, Chandler and Day were given four hours per week to create their artist statements, bios, studio practice structure and artworks all exhibited here in this gallery and created in their new studios within Devasthali Hall. As part of their residency, the University Art Museum provided two-hour classes for their children once a week to create artwork while their mothers were given time and space to work in their studios. The artworks exhibited here represent what happens when we create a support structure for mothers on the campus of NMSU and when motherhood is offered as a rich concept to explore within academia, rather than an obstacle to overcome. Also within this gallery we view “Let Them Bloom”, a papel picado series coordinated by Bold Futures, formerly Young Women United, and collectively imagined by the women in the Mesilla Valley Art & Organizing cohort and crafted by Las Cruces artist Bryana Valdez.