Author: Helen Sargeant
I am a visual artist, mother of two children aged 12 and 4, and co-founder of the MeWe arts collective. I intend to use this site to explore how my personal experiences as a mother informs my arts practice. To reflect upon the maternal in relationship to memory, loss, and mental health in particular depression and post natal depression. To investigate and explore emotional wellbeing through an expression of the mother-self in arts practice. As I approach the menopause, as my eldest son reaches his teenage years and as my youngest son begins school, I find myself shifting between the then and the now. I find myself re-looking and investigating my maternity.
Website: http://helensargeant.co.uk“I’ll be less of a monster if I can have just a little time to write”
I am monstrous It was just getting light when I woke, I crept downstairs to feed the cat and make a cup of tea. I wanted to write straight away, to think, to reflect, to be alone. I hear the … Continued
Sleep deprivation, clothes, blood, a biscuit, a&e, art, maintenance
Black clouds push past the full of the moon, and the womb empties My periods are changing, they now last for three days. Day one begins with a slow trickle, day two a huge rushing gush of blood that no … Continued
Spider Boy versus the Laundry Pile
Last week I obsessively washed all of the pillows, cushions, blankets, duvets and bed covers in our house as I discovered that our beloved cat Frida Khalo had a very bad infestation of fleas. I imagined them hopping everywhere, as … Continued
POW testosterone tv and the first frost of winter
Writing with pencil and paper, between 2am-4pm in the night, unable to rest my racing mind back to sleep. Naoise beside me, breathing steadily, giggling in his dreams. I type here my hand written words: Last Monday: 4th November 2013 … Continued
When you fall asleep/ When you are gone
I held his hand and stroked his thick soft hair. I watched the light casting shadows on the ground from the slats in the empty laundry basket. Gradually his hand became heavier in mine as he fell into sleep. In … Continued
Tears, tantrums and teenage kicks versus art.
A, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p Naoise sweetly requests that I accompany him by singing the abc song. The moon becomes fuller and brighter each night. Its light shines through … Continued
Breathing together in our sleep
I sleep next to Naoise, together we inhale and exhale air through our lungs. In the womb the baby inhales and exhales amniotic fluid.
Jacob’s Ladder
It’s cold, only the gas fire, on the brim of the hill in Tufnell Park, the attic flat reached by Jacob’s Ladder. A bay window looking out over to the pub opposite, drunken people spill onto the pavement filling the … Continued
Stone Soup
The performance captured in this video was inspired by the online conversation’s generated in response to Sally Barker’s Nipple flowers, stitching stone post. Within this conversation Frances Earnshaw recounts the story of Stone Soup. Here then is the Stone Soup that I promised to … Continued