I am an architect and artist from Slovenia. I am working as a free-lance artist since 2001.
In 2007 I gave birth to a boy, Tobi. With my partner, who is an artist himself, we made the decided for a child quite late, since our position, as artists, is financially unsure and unpredictable. I am a person who worries about not having money.
I enjoy being a mother. I believe the mother is much more occupied with the child during the first year of his life than the father. But even if I spent much more time and energy with Tobi I cannot imagine being a single mother. Father helps a lot many times just with his presence.
I couldn't work much on my projects during this first year. My only free time was after 8 p.m. when we put Tobi in bed. But it demands a great discipline and dedication to stay focused and work every day 3 hours in the evening. I didn't manage to produce anything new. More or less, I was just coordinating old projects and projects started already in the year before I gave birth.
In Slovenia, a free-lance artist mother gets a financial support by the Ministry of Culture during the first year after birth of the child. For me the first half of the year after the birth were great - I wasn't thinking about money and jobs at all.
Immediately after the first 6 months I started to worry about how to earn money. I started to work on projects to earn money after Tobi was 6 months old. This meant even further reducing of the time spent on my projects (which was already reduced to a minimum).
I can understand that artists do not decide to have children. It is a very stressful and unsure life. It depends a lot on an individual situation - if your parents can help, you have a good financial background - as well as on your personal character. I think my situation isn't the worst possible. I know some of my artist friends are even in worse situations.
In June I will get my last financial support of 500 EUR. After that I will need to work much more for money. But since Tobi got a place in a kindergarten only from 1 September, I will have to take care of him for another three months, without really earning money. I don't live in the same city as my parents, so I have no one to take care of Tobi in the meantime.
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- Zvonka Simčič
- Ljubljana, Slovenia
- What can I say. I've been active in the arts for a long time. Mixed styles... they call it multimedia or intermedia art... perhaps it would be more suitable to say: "know your way around!"
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5 comments:
What do you think Zvonka is Adam your the first and the last child?
.c.c.c: blog(anje) v sklopu berlinske razstave; tema: umetna oploditev / materinstvo
Adam is and will always be
my first child.
However, I would be very happy to be
able to provide a warm home for the
two frozelings in the future.
Dear Zvonka
you give all us the power to disobey the law
and struggle for our dreams in life
I thank you ofr your courage
a want-to.be-a-mother too
Thank you for your comment, confirming that I am heading in the right direction. I wouldn’t want people to see it as a kind of political argument. Any work requires empathy and sympathy for its understanding. I do not want to make art for its own sake. I want to touch people’s awareness and confuse. Art is obliged to provoke and arise one’s feelings, and also come out victorious and I wish to be linked with both aspects of its mission.
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