Q: How did you choose which artists you would focus on in your film?
A: I began when I heard about Maye Torres from a friend who lived in New Mexico. I was intrigued to hear that she was living on very little income, out in the country in a solar-heated house, producing most of her own food. Like me, she has three sons. I saw her artwork, loved it, got on a plane six months later, in 2003, and went out to meet her. She struck me as brave and wonderful. Then I began to think it would be even better to include the stories of other women artists. I heard about Angela Williams, the singer-actress, from another friend who had seen her perform. I happened to see Janis Wunderlich’s ceramic sculptures in Boston, and was taken with her “Bird mother” sculpture, and decided to interview her. I had read about Mayumi Oda in a book about extraordinary women, and had a planned for years in the back of my mind to do something on her. Camille Musser was a woman I had painted with in a studio in Cambridge years ago. I had always admired her paintings. Then, I found she had started a school in St. Vincent’s—so wanted to hear more. So, mostly it was word of mouth. I was looking for women willing to talk about how their lives and art intersect.
Q: When you were making the film, did you start with a set of assumptions about what the women would reveal, and simply try to capture moments in which either their words or the images of them in their lives and in their art revealed the points you wanted to communicate to the audience? Or were there insights, surprises, that either you or the artists discovered in the course of making the film?
A: I wanted to see if these women felt really guilty about whether their art took away from their families. On meeting the children, my assumption that the children would be resentful was exploded. They don’t feel neglected. They’re happy. The women have woven their child caring and their art seamlessly. The surprise was that the problems that did arise for some were not with the children, but rather in their relationships with men.
Q: Why did you opt to do this story as a documentary — with documentary’s legendary room for problems and “holes” in the story when reality doesn’t co-operate — rather than fiction, where you could ensure that all the truths you wanted to communicate to an audience would make it onto the screen?
A: A very good question. I was very curious about individual women’s lives. I wanted to find the answers to how they combined caring for children with creating art. The journey was what was interesting to me. I wasn’t controlling the stories.
Q: As women, we considered it a great advance when we were able to break into the world of paid employment, including in male-dominated spheres, in the 1970s and 80s. However, many women with young children were left with even less time to consider exercising their creativity or any potential “calling” as artists. And some felt that their children suffered a lack of attention by having two parents engaged in work outside the home, each 40 hours or more a week. What’s the solution?
A: Children do need parents who are paying attention. It was critical to me to show how vital that work is, and that it’s really work. It doesn’t just happen.
It’s scary. People need to have jobs that pay. Life has gotten more expensive in the last 20 years. That’s why I was interested in these women, because they kept working at their art, no matter what.
I don’t have any answers.
We’re all here for a purpose or a reason. Each of us has something special to offer. You can run away from that, you can live a life that’s not yours, you can get caught up in the busy-ness of life. These women chose to put up with the unsteadiness of their incomes, because of the rightness they felt at their core about doing the work they loved.
Q: What did the film cost to make and, roughly speaking, what was the division of expenses between development, production and post-production?
A: Very expensive. This was my first experience directing, it was sort of like going to film school. So, some things happened that were costly, like having to switch editors half way through.
Altogether, so far, it’s cost almost a million, pretty evenly divided between the phases. And we’re still spending money on distribution. We have done an extraordinary run of theatres in the US, which did not even pay for itself. We’re hoping the Canadian run will actually cover its own costs.
Q: What were your main sources of funding?
A: The financing for all films in the US is a hit or a miss thing. Mine came from friends and relatives. No banks. No grant money.
Q: What are your next projects about? Are you tempted to shift to fictional stories?
A: I love fiction, and I love “real movies”. I come from West Virginia, a poor state, from a long line of women who have done extraordinary things. I’d like to eventually make a drama film about them.
All of my projects currently in the works are documentaries.
Q: Has your involvement in directing and producing films dampened your enthusiasm for painting, which is a more solitary art?
A: I love the collaborative nature of film! I spent many years in the studio painting by myself, and many years writing by myself. So, working with others was wonderful. Distributing this film is, for the moment, a full time job. When I finish that I’m looking forward to writing a book about the creative process, from my own experience, looking at what it takes to do that creative work, be who you are, when you have to make a living and the world around you doesn’t really value the work that you’re doing. It’s a psychic journey.
My main message is this: Life is more fun, despite the financial hardships, when you’re expressing yourself, putting what you care about out into the world. More fun, and filled with more love.
People are afraid of looking foolish, afraid of the effort, afraid of it being too hard. When you live in fear, you live a very small life. It might be comfortable, but it’s usually pretty small.
Q: What’s the gender balance in the audiences that have gone to see this film? And what’s been the reaction?
A: Most of our films are seen by more women than men. A typical ratio would be 80:20. Exceptions: the sold out screenings at the Savannah and Palm Springs festivals, where the balance was closer to 50:50. They’re retirement communities, with a lot of men over 50 or even 65. The men loved the film as much as the women did.
My theory about why older men seem to be more willing to attend and enjoy the film is that when men and women are of mating age, men feel more threatened by women doing extraordinary work. Once they get past that, they are less threatened.
I’m delighted we’re going to be in Canada. We have runs in Toronto and Ottawa. And I’m thrilled with the job Vagrant Films has done promoting the film.
