This exhibit is FREE to the public and will be on display during library hours Monday--Friday 9am-6pm, starting Friday, April 19, 2024 thru Friday, May 10, 2024.
MOTHERLOAD by: The Mothers
Artwork made about Motherhood is often overlooked or written off as unremarkable or unimportant. The experience and work of motherhood is not one to be taken lightly or celebrated. The work on this show is made by artists in Central Arkansas who are also mothers. Our work invites you to reconsider the depth and significance of the narrative of motherhood, as told by us, The Mothers.
We are Inspired by Kate Baer's poem "Motherload":
"She keeps an office in her sternum, the flat bone in the center of her chest with all its urgent papers, vast appointments, lists of minor things. In her vertebrae she holds more carnal tasks: milk jugs, rotten plants, heavy-bottomed toddlers in all their mortal rage.
She keeps frustration in her hallux: senseless chatter, jealous fangs, the spikes of a dinosaur's tail. The belly is more complicated--all heartache and ambition. Fires and tidal waves.
In her pelvis she holds her labors, long and slippery. In her clavicle, silent things. (Money and power. Safety and choice. Tiny banquets of shame.)
In her hands she carries their egos, small and flimsy. In her mouth she holds their laughter, Gentle currents, a cosmos of everything."
This is the secondary branch of the William F. Laman Public Library located in the heart of the Argenta Arts District of North Little Rock.
