"My children are four and seven and a lot has changed as the two of them have grown up. I would say initially my inspiration dropped and then plummeted during the toddlerhood of the eldest and pregnancy of my second child. Pregnancy wasn’t easy and a newborn plus a speech delayed preschooler occupied the majority of my life for a season. Once we moved past that challenging parenting stage my creativity started coming back, maybe around three years ago. But things didn’t really take off until a year ago when I started keeping a daily sketchbook and started finding inspiration wherever I went." -Marissa Lee Swinghammer
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Jaime Derringer
in Artist Mother, Painter
"I pinpoint the moment my daughter was born as one of the most inspirational moments of my life. They say that emotionally draining, difficult or overwhelming moments can spark creativity in a person, and I think that’s exactly what happened to me. I’ve always been creative, secretly, and self-critically. However, when Amelia was born I decided to just roll with it… to own it. I became pretty prolific, mostly because I had little time to create, but also because I never went to art school or anything so I felt like I needed to teach myself so many mediums, techniques, and to learn so much in such a short period of time. I wanted to get into a groove right away." - Jaime Derringer
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Sonia Brittain
in Artist Mother, Painter
"I think having children has definitely made me more inspired! Since being at home with the children I have painted and drawn more than I ever did when working full time in my previous career (I was a psychiatrist). I also feel I'm much more open to new ideas, and able to appreciate the small things, as drawing makes me look more closely at the world around me." -Sonia Brittain
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