August 12, 2009

Despite all the rhetoric to the contrary, I don't think a woman can be a dedicated anything (artist, academic, scientist, etc.) and be a decent mother at the same time, in the same life. Denying this is wishful thinking, if I'm to look at myself, my friends, and our domestic situations.

Elizabet Ney was an unparalleled sculptress of the 19th century, and one of my favorite characters of all time. She and her husband, a Dr. Montgomery, came to east Texas from Germany (I think) to create a social utopia. Obviously, they failed in this, so he plied his craft as a horse and buggy doctor, and she pursued her own interests. The locals found her "odd." She lived in a large, Victorian home near Hempstead, Texas, wore "trousers, bobbed her hair, and smoked cigars." Worst of all, she herself cremated the body of her infant son. She moved to Austin, now the state's capital, and lived in a hovel on the outskirts of town for the rest of her life, sculpting.


It is her statues of Stephen F. Austin and Sam Houston that live in Washington's Hall of Statuary as Texas' "favorite sons." She is featured and exhibited in the Institute of Texan Cultures in San Antonio, clearly the most notable of all Texas artists until that time.

Referring to her move away from east Texas to the capital city, the narrative in her exhibit says, "Having failed miserably as a mother, by her own reckoning, she shifted her focus to sculpting..." She knew, even back then, that each was a calling of totality in time, effort, and commitment.

No one could be a more ardent feminist than I, but none of us is Superwoman. We can't have it all, do it all, or be all of it: They lied to us. We still must choose, and there will be a price. If we refuse to do that, the choice will be made for us by others and by circumstance.

PW