First Friday Opening for "The Mother and...Project"

Name: First Friday Opening for "The Mother and...Project"
Start: 2025-10-03T17:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-10-03T20:00:00-05:00
Location: Leedy-Voulkos Art Center

Schedule

Fri Oct 03 2025 at 05:00 pm to 08:00 pm

UTC-05:00

Location

Leedy-Voulkos Art Center | Kansas City, MO

JOIN US on First Friday in September, October and November 2025 to view a group exhibition, "The Mother and....Project" in our Main Gallery!
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FEATURED ARTISTS
Debbie Barrett-Jones | Rahele Jomepour Bell | Laura Berman | Mona Cliff | Julie Farstad | Nancy Friedemann-Sanchez | Diana Heise | Cory Imig | Sarah Irvin | Priya Kambli | Samantha Krukowski | Linda Lighton | Beili Liu | Sukanya Mani | Adrienne Maples | Amy Meissner | Althea Murphy-Price | Sonié Joi Thompson Ruffin.
Co-curators: Eleanor Lim-Midyett & Courtney Wasson
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"The Mother and…Project" celebrates motherhood as a source of expansive creative potential and alternative modes of being.
Focusing specifically on women who identify as both mothers and artists, the project highlights the diversity of their lived experiences. It asserts that artist-mothers are not a monolith, but encompass a wide range of intersectional identities, perspectives, and practices.
At the heart of the exhibition is the concept of “the ethics of mothering”, the guiding vision through which the artist-mother raises her children and teaches them to engage with the world, emphasizing curiosity, relationality, and care. This ethical framework not only shapes her parenting but also informs her studio practice, defining the methodologies, materials, and narratives she employs, as well as the way she navigates life more broadly. Embedded in both her caregiving and creative work, the ethics of mothering reveals that mother and artist are not divided selves, but one whole body - fluid, intuitive, and evolving. In her life and work, mothering becomes art, and art becomes a kind of mothering.
The project aspires to build a community centered on collaboration and support among artist-mothers and the broader public. Our programming includes family workshops specifically designed to foster creative exploration and support the development of young artists, affirming the gallery as a space for intergenerational engagement and imaginative growth.
The participating artist-mothers are mid-career, nationally and internationally exhibited artists, carefully selected to represent a range of disciplines, mediums, and cultural contexts. They include: Debbie Barrett-Jones, Rahele Jomepour Bell, Laura Berman, Mona Cliff, Julie Farstad, Nancy Friedemann-Sanchez, Diana Heise, Cory Imig, Sarah Irvin, Priya Kambli, Samantha Krukowski, Linda Lighton, Beili Liu, Sukanya Mani, Adrienne Maples, Amy Meissner, Althea Murphy-Price, and Sonié Joi Thompson Ruffin.
"The Mother and... Project" seeks to make visible and celebrate the empowering visual narratives of these artist-mothers. Their contributions will be presented through an exhibition, supported by written essays and visual images in the exhibition catalog and audio interviews in the podcast series. The full scope of the project will be documented and archived online via a dedicated website and social media platforms. The project will contribute to the growing body of feminist and art-historical scholarship at the intersection of artistic practice and motherhood.