Sarah Beatty on embracing your weird

Sarah Beatty (: 00:00

I'm gonna take myself seriously enough to follow through on this stuff and not listen to the voices as I'm not good enough and not listen to the voices as like nobody's gonna care about you. Just continue, because it's your journey in your life and like it's worth it to follow through on that and to take yourself seriously and to care enough about yourself to take yourself seriously.

Nikko Snyder (: 00:27

I'm Nikko Snyder and this is Parenting Creative, a podcast that explores the places where creative life and parenting collide and all the magic and mess that ensues. This is our first season and in it we're delving into the creative lives of parents making art that ranges from music and poetry to theater, journalism and craft. Our goal is to build community and connection for those living deep in the struggles of caring for others while at the same time prioritizing their own creative lives. If you'd like to hear more conversations about making art while parenting,

Please help grow our community by following Parenting Creative wherever you get your podcasts, leaving us a five-star review with a few kind words, and visiting parentingcreative.com to sign up for our email newsletter.

On today's episode, I'm talking to ceramic artist Sarah Beatty. Sarah lives on the unceded Sinixt territory in the Slocan Valley. She's the parent of two school-aged children and she's also a full-time working artist. Her business, Objects and Feelings, focuses on functional pottery and explores interactions and dynamics between people. It's also worth noting that Sarah's pottery business is currently the primary source of income for her family due to her partner's disability. In my conversation with Sarah, we talk about the pressures of making art for money.

especially when your family relies on that income. We also talk about disability visibility, living with ADHD and neurodiversity, not having the brain space available to make the art you want to make, but making art anyway, kin keeping or invisible labor, the value of deadlines, the boringness of perfection, enjoying your own individual weirdness and taking yourself seriously enough to follow through and not listening to the voices that say you're not good enough. Here's my conversation with ceramic artist and parent, Beatty.

this is actually the second interview that I'm doing. So it's still like real fresh and new. So yeah, thank you for being here.

Sarah Beatty (: 02:19

it's my great pleasure. Thanks for calling me to talk about myself.

Nikko Snyder (: 02:24

Yeah. Okay, well, let's do it. So on that note, I'll acknowledge we are both living in the same general area and that is, it is on the unceded and traditional and ancestral territories of the Sinixt people. So I just want to bring that forward, but I would love to also invite you to just introduce yourself to our listeners and just share your worldview, I guess, a little bit. Okay. No pressure.

Sarah Beatty (: 02:52

Lay it out there for us now. My name is Sarah. And as you said, I currently reside on the traditional Sinixt territory as a settler. I use she her pronouns. I am white. And I guess I come from a kind of European salad heritage. And I grew up in like the kind of

agricultural spaces north of Toronto. So I was a rural, a really raised child and my parents, they are still together. So I was raised by two parents. I have two younger sisters and my mother was a stay at home mom. She's, she did all the domestic labor. My father

He's like a real DIYer, but he had an office job and he was away a lot while I was growing up. So he did a lot of traveling for work. I grew up being kind of a weirdo. I had trouble socially managing, so I had impulsivity in my behavior that made it hard for me to like integrate with other children, which meant I was just like dorky.

and goofy and performative in weird ways. So I ended up identifying as an artist really early on. It was the place where I felt I had safe harbor to be myself, where I was accepted. I didn't demonstrate some sort of technical mastery that was remarkable or anything. I just really cared about art from when I was a super young kid. And that's kind of the social network I found.

as well as the place where I found people were receptive to what I was doing. So through that, I went to art camp and music camp and I did all of the opportunities one could take from where I lived. I was into it. I had parents who were like, I don't know, weirdly hands off about what I was doing. They wanted me to have a job and stuff, but they were happy to send me to university.

and I just applied to art school. And they didn't even notice. I was privileged enough to have parents that were like, yes, you're going to university. You were doing post-secondary. We will help you with that. And they were removed enough to be like, wait, what are you doing? You're doing art? Are you sure? And it was the only place I applied. So I had the great benefit of having a family that was happy to send me to art school. And that was the only choice for me. I didn't. I was lucky enough to get into the place I applied.

So that's my location in the world. I was a weirdo. My parents sent me to art school. Thank God, because that was where I fit.

Nikko Snyder (: 05:53

I'm curious to hear about what your art life, creative life looked like before having kids and then kind of that transition.

Sarah Beatty (: 06:01

My work ranged. So I had on the one hand, a collaborative drawing art practice with a dear friend who I had like a really good collaborative relationship with. Our work was about dialogue. It was a conversation. So one of us would start and the other would like we would just pass things back and forth. But we were talking about kind of like social contract things and we were talking about

expectations on women and a lot of our work centered around like things like basic stuff that you talk about as a teen, like body image and stuff, but kind of in a bit confrontational way. And on my own, did work sometimes, a lot of it was centered on social expectations. So my work is really about interactions with others. It continues to be like that. So it's just about like,

feeling the feelings of others' expectations. Yeah. And then so, okay, so then I had a baby, my daughter, and I really didn't make art at like at all. I was home with her and that was just like, it was enough. It was too much to even think about creative, like just like having ideas that I could draw from that I felt like.

authentic about. Like, I guess I felt like weirdly like jealous and left out from like the like art these artists that like have a baby and then they're like considering stuff related to motherhood, like the transformative experience of having a child and like can channel that into like creative creative outlet. just felt like basic survival was like about my limit. So there was no art practice for years, really.

Nikko Snyder (: 08:00

I you've mentioned to me that transition was hard. It was a struggle to transition to parenthood. I don't know if you're willing to share a bit about that postpartum experience.

Sarah Beatty (: 08:12

Yeah, for sure. I guess I likened it to like a second worse puberty where everything was new and terrifying. And then there was like the added. So there's like the body component for me. People talk about being pregnant as like this like joyful experience. I felt like there was like like my body had become alien. Like I felt very uncomfortable with all of the things happening. I couldn't like get into it and feel the beauty of that. It just felt.

awkward and hard. like for a person who was like kind of awkward with their body already, like it just like threw me into this whole other experience of feeling like nothing worked properly. I couldn't navigate in space effectively. Like I just felt so clumsy and off all the time. And then I was really obsessed with the like experience of giving birth. It had built up as like this like terrifying experience. And I read a lot of like

hippie midwifery stuff like from like ename. what's her last name? It doesn't matter. You know who I'm talking about like these like

Nikko Snyder (: 09:21

yeah, I read it too, yeah.

Sarah Beatty (: 09:37

like home birth people and I was like, yeah, I'm gonna home birth and I'm gonna do this. It's so hard and I'm gonna like rock it out. And I just like, I kind of like focused super hard on that. And then like once I had a baby, it was like, oh, now you have like your body's so weird. But then there's like this thing that needs you to survive. there's like this like, and like my baby wouldn't, she was little. So I had to nurse her.

beginning every two hours, 24 hours a day, and it took like an hour and a half for her to nurse enough. And like, was like excruciatingly painful. I had like all these like breastfeeding specialists. I think I saw like five or six of them. There was just like nothing to do about it. Anyway, it was just, it was kind of awful. And like, in an isolating way where I was just like alone, I didn't know anyone who had had babies.

And like later on I had friends who had babies and they did it with such grace and beauty. And I was just like, why couldn't I do that? I don't know. I don't know. It was awful. And then my daughter got sick kind of early on. There was nothing anyone could do about it except look at me with deep concern. And I was a zombie person. And it was just like so much big, crazy, huge experience. Like it was like everything. A lot of that was pretty traumatic. We had to go to children's, we like,

lived in a hospital for a week or so. Anyway, it was like huge and hard and awful. She got better and then I was alone for a year taking care of this baby who's like just a force of nature. Like she just would never sleep. She had like a lot of personality from the beginning and my partner was working full-time and kind of holding it down in like a very challenging job.

And so I was like really alone and isolated and I got like pretty depressed. And I used to just walk with her, I'd like strap her onto me and I would just walk for like four hours a day to just kind of like process the experience of becoming a mother. Yeah. And then there was like no art practice. That was like, it was so far removed from my experience at that point that like I couldn't even conceive of it. It's not like the good artist story of like,

I had a baby and then while they were napping I started doing this cool thing. was just like, no, I was sleeping like that for two years. I was just processing the enormity of having a human to take care of. It fucking sucked. It was hard as shit. Hated that shit.

Nikko Snyder (: 12:19

Yeah. So you said like, you know, it was really, really hard. think you just said for two years, two solid years, really, really hard. Yeah. You also decided to have a second child. So I don't know if that, Yeah.

Sarah Beatty (: 12:30

Besides a funny word,

okay. I mean, I'm really, I love my kids so much. And like the transformative experience like from this like 10 years in as a parent, it's the best. I don't have regrets, but at the time like my daughter, when she was about two, she started just looking so sad and lonely. She really wanted a sibling.

And that was a very like daily presence was like the yearning of my one child for someone to relate to. And I felt like weirdly coming out of the experience of like deep isolation, being all alone, parenting, even though I had a partner who like came home and like, like I would like attack him when he came home at night, because I was so lonely. I just saw that in my daughter and I just felt like, oh, well, you know what, like I have siblings.

It was a lifesaver growing up having someone that knew me and could relate to me and was in my corner, even though we fought all the time. That was really important. And I just felt like kind of weirdly obliged. And I also thought, this was selfish, I also thought that it would peel my child away from me to have someone that they could relate to, that they could play with. And I wanted more space. I felt suffocated by the neediness of the toddler.

You know, so we just kind of got to a point where we were like, well, we'll just see what happens. And like five seconds later, I was pregnant again. So like I wasn't I wasn't ready for my first kid and I wasn't ready for my second. I did when I realized I was pregnant with the second. That was like a point like I had gone back to work after a year of having my child and I was an art teacher. So I did high school grade seven to 12 visual arts. And then I also kind of was a guidance officer. Like I had to

jobs in this little liberal arts school, I had gone back to work and juggling like being a mom and then being a teacher where you're caring for people in like an adolescent stage where like your job is to like also be in their corner and like support them and like try to encourage them and like see their brilliance and stuff. Like, you know, like you're like shelling out so much energy. I just felt like once I had one kid,

I couldn't do both things to the degree that I had expected. But I was like kind of doing it. But then once I had realized I was pregnant with my second, I like panic button hard. Like I just hadn't kind of come to terms with it. I realized I was pregnant and I immediately like we put an offer on a house in BC. Like we were in Toronto living downtown and I was just like, I'm.

going to die. Like I can't do these things. It's too much for me. Anyway, so I had like a big dumb freak out about being pregnant for the second time and like having to keep continue carrying all these things. And we on a whim impulsively put an offer on a house in BC, here where I am right now. And

Well, we did it. We thought there would be stoppers. We thought someone with sense would be like, no, we're not lending you money for this property. Or like, no, you can't do these things. It's ridiculous. But nothing happened. Everything fell into place for us, weirdly. And we totally did it because I couldn't hack. I just couldn't manage the thought of continuing in my career and being a mother effectively. It was just like, no. It was even totally aside from being an artist. I hadn't.

I hadn't been an artist since I had kit.

Nikko Snyder (: 16:14

So like major kind of existential upheaval into like a completely new situation. Absolutely. And then with like with a toddler and then a newborn.

Sarah Beatty (: 16:29

Yeah, we moved when my little one was two months old. Wow. I gave birth to him and like the next day I was like painting a house with him on my back. Wow.

Nikko Snyder (: 16:40

Parenthood sounds like it kind of exploded your sense of self, the track that your life was on. You've mentioned to me sort of the loss of identity. So I mean, your whole life has taken a different direction and shape kind of as a direct result of this like transformative journey of parenthood. So, I mean, you talked about this innate identity as an artist from like a young child and then this transformative experience of parenting. Can you talk about that loss and have you?

Have you found that identity or like as your kids have gotten older, like how has that evolved? Fast forward, I guess, maybe a little bit to like where's your life now?

Sarah Beatty (: 17:20

Okay, so right now I am a full-time potter. There's a bridge, but at the moment I work full-time for myself as a ceramic artist who does like functional pottery. And that is my gig. And it grew out of a hobby craft that was like a kind of night therapy for when I was an art teacher where I just became really fascinated with the process because it's so freaking hard to master.

I just liked that it was like repetitive and dumb and like technical and I just liked it and I could do it over and over and over and over again. And it just, it takes weird concentration where you, it's like the kind of like yoga thing where you're like, or music, you know, like playing an instrument, you just have the space to focus on the thing in front of you. And that experience is really therapeutic. So it came out of that.

And it started as like a thing I did. set up a studio in the new place in BC and I did it in my free time like when the kids were in daycare or at night. And it just kind of grew out of that. It's not the same work that I was doing before I had kids. I still don't have like the intellectual space or freedom to work in a conceptual capacity. And like, I'm not saying my work was like that intellectual because it was like,

very landed in feelings always, but like, I don't have, I still as a parent don't have like the kind of free brain space to work in that way. So this is like a kind of compromised job and I'm really happy about it because I'm independently employed and I have room and it's like very satisfying to like make your own stuff and like make a living out of it. It's cool, it feels really cool.

But it's not like, it's really not the same. Like if I had decided I did not want to become a parent, I feel like I'd be in a totally different place.

Nikko Snyder (: 19:24

It started as a hobby. You mentioned the word therapeutic.

Sarah Beatty (: 19:28

Like it was a coping strategy. It's still like that. It still occupies a kind of like, it's like self-care adjacent, what I do. Like I make 60 of the same thing by myself in a room once my kids are in school every day. And that's really good for me to be alone, to do something quiet, to have space to breathe is certainly helping me cope with the demands of parenting.

which I find absolutely exhausting. And I feel like I can do it because I have that space on my own. Now it's getting a little out of hand. Like it feels like the job is taking up too much room. So I'm starting like this sort of like drive for financial success is kind of like pushing me to commit more and more time into it. And because it's becoming, becoming a thing that generates income.

I've become more committed to it. And that's like something that has to kind of be constantly negotiated. It's like, I giving, am I like taking myself away from my family for a good reason? Like, is it like helping in the end or am I just kind of like separating myself out for like hours in the evening because I find it easier in a way, you know? Like emotionally easier. Yeah.

Nikko Snyder (: 20:53

Also though, this is, as I understand it, your pottery business and practice is your family's primary source of income. So there's the pressure of that, right?

Sarah Beatty (: 21:04

Sure, yeah. And that's come out of, you know, just happenstance. So my partner was an MVA in 2018 and he received a pretty significant disabling injury of having an incomplete spinal cord injury. And he's been on like a very intensive path of like recovery and then like career retraining.

and then making assessments to realize that working with chronic debilitating pain is impossible. And he's been on a path where he's come to a point for this time where he hasn't been working as a type of self-preservation strategy, which I really do agree with, I support it. What I care about most is having him around.

Nikko Snyder (: 21:58

Yeah, okay, so life circumstances have changed.

Sarah Beatty (: 22:02

Definitely. And in a way that's kind of pushed me towards being independent, like self-employed due to the fact that he's disabled, he's taken advantage of intuition supports for school. And so he's had the opportunity to go back to school and get a second degree. And then he had another opportunity to work for the government of BC during like diversity, equity and inclusion. And he's had like different opportunities that have come out of.

having like disability status, which has kind of like pushed me away from retraining for another career. So I've been just kind of like out of the experience, the parent that's been home and managing house and managing kids schedules and stuff like that. So my time has been kind of like flexible in that way.

Nikko Snyder (: 22:56

So you have this business, there's like the financial reality of like, is an important source of livelihood for your family. You've also talked about it as like, you use the term self-care adjacent. I'd love for you to talk a little bit more about that and like what that means to you. And also you've talked about pottery as a way of coping, like that alone time as part of how you cope with the demands of life and parenting. But I'm also curious, do you do self-care?

Do you have other ways of, you know, other outlets for creativity or just for sanity?

Sarah Beatty (: 23:32

work I do is is satisfying but not in a way because of the necessity of income. I'm really limited and I feel like I feel like I take like little baby steps towards new ideas and new things but I feel very lashed down and relegated to work that is consumable which isn't necessarily a bad thing it just means that I feel like I have like a lane that I have to stay in and I'm

concern is maybe self-imposed, but I become rather concerned with pushing outside of that lane and then not having it pan out because, you know, time is money and all those things. So like, it's not the same experience. And because of that obligation, which like certainly does like having things have like real life implications is motivating and fun in a way. there's like creative stuff comes out of that, out of that necessity.

that keeps me on my toes and keeps me moving forward. And that is definitely gratifying. it's like, don't wanna overlook that component because in and of itself, it is like a creative experience and it's generative and interesting. However, no, because of that same thing, it's a stressful thing to do. So no, don't really have time to like, I should do weight training and I'm in my 40s now and I have to have an

exercise regime like that's like preserving me from like turning into like, like a thing that is brittle and breaks, like I have to like, come to terms with my aging. And so that takes time and space and that that's something that needs to be eeked out. And it's it's a process for me like I'm trying my I'm going to like, join the gym and like lift weights and stuff. So my self care right now is like going to the community band and

It's like the hobby that gives for me because it's just takes everything. So there's no room to be concerned with like what groceries we don't have for the lunches tomorrow. Like there's no room to be like, did the kiln work out? I just like, you just have to be there and it's present and it's community based. like for me playing music with other people, like I've never been like particularly a great musician. I just have loved it. So I played piano growing up. I was in

all the bands I played trombone from grade seven until I graduated high school. I did all the music dork things like I love. I just love it so much. So that is a thing I do. Just having like one thing where you're like people kind of depend on you to show up is really good for me because otherwise it'll go by the wayside. Like I need negative implicate. Like there needs to be like something forcing me to do it. So like that responsibility, that sense of like, you know, the trombone section will be let down if I don't show up feels.

nice for me. I like belonging like that. It's great. that I do do. Yeah, it's a great joy for me for sure. Otherwise, no. No, I don't do other things. That's it. That's the one thing I do. It's okay. go to band practice once a week for three hours. So yes.

Nikko Snyder (: 26:40

No self care.

I just want to take a second to thank you for tuning in. Parenting Creative is an independent Canadian podcast. If you like what you hear, please help us grow by taking a few moments to sign up for our email newsletter at parentingcreative.com and by following us on social media. We're at Parenting Creative on Instagram and Blue Sky. So I feel like I can relate to some of what I've hearing you talk about, about the ways that in your life you need to actively be coping.

with the experience of parenting. And I'm wondering if you'd be open to talking about, I know like ADHD for example is like something that you I think experience in your family. So we all have our unique parenting challenges and our family dynamics and yeah, just thinking about like how we cope and what we're coping with and.

Sarah Beatty (: 27:33

Yeah, okay, so from my perspective, my partner has pretty severe ADHD and my kids have significant ADHD diagnosis. I am an undiagnosed person with like a strong inkling that I have some neurodiversity, though I'm not sure if I could like confidently self-diagnose, but I do have like kind of like a low threshold for stimuli.

I get overwhelmed pretty easily and I am like emotionally, like naturally emotionally pretty volatile. I'm like passionate and intense and like I also like suffer with anxiety and so I'm like a whole handful of things I think and anyway my kids were diagnosed pretty young. My partner was diagnosed when he was five.

And then he was medicated till he was a teen and then took himself off and his life went a bit sideways for a very long time. And then he went back to the doctor before we had a child and decided to medicate himself, which was, in his words, good for him. And I think from my perspective, stabilizing our children. I guess my daughter was diagnosed when she was six during the first stages of the pandemic, when we were all home together.

And there were a few incidents that were really alarming and terrifying that occurred. And so she was diagnosed rather quickly and then my son was diagnosed thereafter when he was six, three years later. Both of my kids take medication for it. It is a lifesaver. It has changed everything. I lived with daily panic about not watching my children for fear of something going terribly wrong. I would be scared to go to the bathroom. I would be scared to look away from them.

I had to have it locked down all the time for fear of their safety. so having them medicated was a lifesaver. And my daughter, in her words, says she doesn't like the feeling of not being medicated because she doesn't feel like she's in control of herself at all. The medication is like a slow release Ritalin. So they take it in the morning and then it runs out around five o'clock. So the bookends of our days are pretty intense.

like exhausting. My kids temperamentally are different. My daughter is not a morning lover. She has struggled to wake up in the morning. She struggles to fall asleep at night. When she's asleep, she's out like a light until the morning. My son is an early riser. He wakes up before, well before the sun with a smile on his face, ready to start the day. So every morning, it's the same battle of like my son waking up my daughter by being like, good morning, how are you?

And her being like, shut up already. Like, it's just like, it's just, that's the hour. And then anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Like if I don't specifically say what groceries to get and my partner gets the groceries and he gets like the instance I have is like, he got the wrong flavor of yoke. Like we don't even buy that product, but he got it. But then he got the wrong flavor. So one kid got the right flavor. One kid didn't get the right flavor. And then the whole morning was wrecked.

they just get like really locked into their things. We have like checklists, like we do every all the strategies that you can think of like we're down to like bribing like we're just like if you get 20 check marks from like 20 good mornings of getting onto the bus without a screaming match or someone crying or someone getting punched all of those things like and you feed the dogs too like you have like a little tiny chore you get a check mark and if you get 20 you get a stuffy like you get

you can have a prize for not punching someone like 20 days in a row. And that's like the strategy that like incentivizing, you know, that like it works but only for so long. I don't know. Like I feel like a survivor if my kids are on the bus and I'm waving goodbye to them. It is a lot. As a person who gets like overwhelmed really easily, like it's like every morning I'm just like, please someone just like make it work out. I don't know.

And then nights can be similar, but they're kind of fine. Like everyone's more like used to being alive at night. So it's okay. we just, luckily like my partner and I will each just both, each of us will take a child and like go through a process of slowing them down to go to sleep, which is long. It's a long process. It's very like, okay, we're all going to go upstairs like right after dinner at 6.30 and then like.

The older one has a calm down period in her room where she has no screens and she has to either do math multiplication or draw or something. She's doing calm down activities. And then there's a long period of reading together, talking about our day, and a back rub. It's a long spa treatment every single night for them to go to sleep. I'm happy to do it. It's okay, but it just takes a long process.

doesn't leave that much room like once they're asleep I'm just like a not ready to be creative is one thing I want to just watch a TV show

Nikko Snyder (: 32:58

I hear that. And I'm like smiling and laughing at some of the things you're describing because there is humor in it, but I also want to acknowledge like just how hard it is. And are you okay with like, I just openly asked you about neurodiversity and your family. Like, are you comfortable sharing that?

Sarah Beatty (: 33:16

I don't just feel comfortable about it. I feel like I have a political drive to talk about it. So, same with disability visibility, I feel the same way. I think it's really important for people to hear stories about that and how folks have coped with it. And yeah, I would even have gone further, I think, in a different space. So, I'm happy with that. My boring joke that I always make is like, why didn't anyone tell me?

Why didn't I know what was going to be just so hard? And I should have noticed that my mom was exhausted. I didn't notice because we have you heard about something called Kincare? friend of mine played part of a podcast and I'm unfortunately I can't reference the author.

Nikko Snyder (: 34:03

Quick aside, I wasn't familiar with the term, kincare. So after my conversation with Sarah, I went digging and I figured out that the term that's generally used is actually, kinkeeping. I did track down the podcast that Sarah was talking about. Back in 2023, Women's Mental Health podcast actually did a three-part series on kinkeeping and it's definitely worth a listen. So I'll share that link out in our show notes.

Sarah Beatty (: 34:26

The thought stuck with me is just that the kind of care that no one notices, like that your mom, usually a mother, not obviously, a, but like a primary care provider, does all this work. And we talk about it as intellectual labor now or emotional labor, but they're doing the work that no one notices that makes things function. They're doing the work of like remembering to get you socks because your feet grew.

making food, like they're doing all this stuff in between. They're like running errands for you behind the scenes. They're like making sure the car works. Like they're doing all of this stuff that is like the glue that holds your life together, that gets no glory. They're like the analogy was, they're everything but the actors for the production. They're not the people you clap for at the end. They're the people that make it work. They promote it. They do the lighting. They direct it.

they choose the screenplay, they edit it, they pick the actors, they do the costume work, they do the staging, all of it. The AD, they're running around getting food ready and stuff. They do all of that labor, but nobody claps for them. The audience sees the work of the actor. They're there for the actor. And usually the primary parent is like, they're not the actor, the person that's wearing themselves out, doing all this work that no one even notices. And it really stuck with me, because I was just like,

as the person who was raised by a mother who did like all of that work and I was just all I brought was like kind of like a sassy like why aren't you like why are you so glum like I was so such a jerk about it and it's just like I'm like in my mid-40s now and I'm just coming to a point where I'm like yeah like I get it mom that was hard like you really did it all like you took our

sisters of skating lessons and me to piano and like everything was a super long drive and like you picked me up from band practice and the only thing I remembered is the one time you forgot to get me.

Nikko Snyder (: 36:30

Okay, well, I love the metaphor of the stage production, you know, and all the background work that happens. It's an amazing metaphor for parenthood. That type of care that really is largely unnoticed by everybody, but particularly our children. They have no idea, right? It's like the magic, the magic of theater. You were talking a little bit about your mom and what was your upbringing in the sense of how, what was modeled to you?

Sarah Beatty (: 36:56

was modeled to me, caring. My mom was a caregiver. She did a lot of self-sacrifice to take care of us. It was her identity. She wanted to be a mother. She talks about it all the time, how she was like, felt uncomfortable with any of the roles except for being a mother. And that was interesting to me because I like similarly felt like nothing worked for me except for one specific thing. She did that. But I think from my perspective, it kind of ran out for her and she got

pretty depressed by the time I was a teenager, just taking care of us all. And she spent a lot of her time driving everyone around. And so like, that was sort of it. Like I had a caregiving mother and that was the modeling that I internalized. Her and I are like a little bit different and a little bit the same. And so I probably didn't love when I saw her so sad and didn't want to be connected to that.

and wanted to feel like an active agent in my life. So I was always kind of like working against this idea of domesticity and swore to myself that I would have a partnership that was equal, equally shared in domestic labor, including parenting. Yeah, it's a struggle. Like it's a struggle against bitterness, I think for me, because here I am in this situation where I have to like, I out of like, just out of what's happened.

with my partner's disability, I have to be a domestic person. I have to do it. It's not going to be done. It's just the way it is. And it's hard. That is a battle I have where I'm pissed off a lot of the time. I'm pissed that I don't want to do these, I don't want to be the person that picks up your dirty socks. It's so stupid. Pick up your own socks. It's just...

despite all this thinking and working against that outcome of being my mom, being this domestic person, that that's who I am. You talk to parents when your kids are little and they're like, it's gonna change. And then you talk to them when your kids are a little older and you're still waiting for it to change. And you're like, but is it gonna change soon? And they're like, oh, it just happens. And then their kids are maybe three years older than yours. So you're like, okay, so in three years,

it's gonna change, right? And it just, feels like I'm there and I'm like on this like belt, like it just like I'll, I'll chuck there, we'll get there slowly. And it, it does, it's happening slowly. And people that I look up to say things like, yeah, I just give myself like two hours a week where I just do what I want. And I'm like, that sounds really reasonable. Like I think we can all afford two hours a week where we put aside the other things and like,

dedicated to our own investigations. like, that is the goal for me too, is to try to like, set aside like a little bit of time when I'm not parenting or taking care of other people that's like inside of my work day. That's just for my own exploring. Things get put off and put off, but if you treat it like part of your job, it feels like it's like manageable, like it feels like it could maybe happen. What I'm doing now is like, I'm not, it's not my hobby to...

make art. It's my job and like that kind of like implication is that it's serious and important in a way that I think a lot of us tend to overlook is that the creativity and the things that bring us joy in our lives like aren't important but like at least for me I've found a way to make it important by making it my job like and it's not something that I do for fun it's real like and it's serious so like I get I kind of get away with it that way.

And I'm trying to build more space into that serious, the serious jobbiness of it that is playful, because the play's the thing that makes it worthwhile, and just make that part of the responsibility of the job. I'm just trying to roll in more fun.

Nikko Snyder (: 40:56

It's interesting because your actual work, your current work, which I don't, we haven't really talked about, but I mean, the content of your work is quite playful. Like it's a little bit, I mean, there's a, there's a bit of darkness to it, but there's also lots of humor and playfulness. would say, can you talk a little bit about what you bring into your, your art in terms of just, guess, the themes of like, what are, what are you, you're not just making throwing pots, right? Like you are. And, and at the same time, there's like some.

there's some commentary or there's some exploration going on.

Sarah Beatty (: 41:29

I did start just making pots. So it was just making pottery for a long time because I was really scared to open it up and make myself kind of vulnerable and let everyone know that I was kind of weird. I just made stuff that looked pretty and basic for a while. When I was like, I'm going to be a potter. This is serious life choice. I had gone from like doing pottery for fun and making super weird representational stuff on pots because it was for me and playing.

to doing like here in BC making like basic things and trying to make them look just like really elegant and pretty and like trying to like kind of it was like my like copycat mode like I was just like I'm trying to like be serious everyone look at me I can do this but then I was reading an article by Kathy Tarapaki that talked about how like ceramics don't go they have like more staying power than everything they're like it's like a million years before it turns back into dirt

Nikko Snyder (: 42:26

I couldn't track down the specific article that Sarah was referring to, but I did go down a rabbit hole where I learned some really interesting factoids about Kathy Tarapaki, who is a BC based potter and parent who does some really cool things like harvest her own clay in your Chilliwack. We'll link out to her Instagram in the show notes.

Sarah Beatty (: 42:44

Once you transform clay into ceramic, it's like forever. Like for all intents and purposes, it's forever. It's like the relic that people will, if there's still people in a million years, they will find it, you know? So it has like this kind of like, like the way the parenting feels like important and scary. You're like, my God, like that's just, it's not something you want to just toss off and be like, yeah, look at like, I can do it great for me. But like, it just felt like at that point I was like, there's enough like really nice pottery out here and everywhere.

and it's a renaissance and everyone loves it now, great. There's enough like really good looking handsome pottery in this world that I don't need to contribute to that. Like I don't have, nothing about me is there. Like good for me, I can mix a glaze, but like it was just like, there's like nothing there to say that it meant anything that I was doing it. So I just felt like if I'm gonna make something, it may as well be me. It may as well be weird and something that.

I can feel like I'm investigating and what I care about is interactions. I care about, I think about it. I'm super sensitive. I feel it. I have like socially paranoid sometimes. Like it rever- like there's like an echo for me when I interact with people sometimes. Like it just sits with me. And so that's work that I've always made is work that's about...

people interacting with each other. There's like a dialogue, there's a dynamic, there's something happening. And so work that I like to do is work where I get to be surprised by a story or a narrative that is implied from something as simple as like a face. And so when I'm working like somewhat representationally and like my background is like I really care about like, like interruptive art practices. So I really like, I really loved

the Dada movement, like I was like kind of into surrealism minus the misogyny. Like I really like when we're, I loved abstract expressionism. Like I love it when we're like surprised by our output, where we're like doing something almost intuitively, but we're reacting and we're processing. And in that way, it's like tied to a type of therapy where we're reacting and we're processing our experience. So.

The practice that I find engages me the most is a practice where I get to be surprised by my output. And I mean, I feel a little bit limited now because I've been like putting like faces on things for like years now. And I'm just like, how many faces can I make? Like, is it 10,000? Like, can I make 10,000 different faces? Like, and I'm like starting to be like, maybe I'm getting like a little bit repelling. I'm starting to like go back to these things I've done before. And I feel like I've like,

come to a point where I'm like, maybe I've done all the faces one can do. But that is my practices where I've been like, okay, I'll find like one subject and then I'll try to do a thousand different of it and see what the story can be once it's out there. So I'm not thinking really much about anything other than like my own enjoyment when I'm doing stuff. I'll like draw and stuff. So I make a pot. My process generally is I make a pot and then I

either bisque fire it, which means that you're taking the clay and you're turning it into a ceramic. And then I draw on it in pencil and I'll paint it. And then I'll do a glaze firing and then it's like permanent. Or else I'll wait till it's greenware, which is just still clay but dry. And then I'll draw on it at that stage. So I'm making a surf, like I'm making a vessel and then I'm responding and I'm like thinking about like interactions usually. And that's it. Like I'm just like kind of playing and seeing what happens.

Nikko Snyder (: 46:27

Do you take inspiration from actual interactions? Like are you kind of always seeing through that lens? Like if you're out in the world or you're parenting your kids or...

Sarah Beatty (: 46:36

Yeah, think about I think about interactions constantly. I think about dynamics. think about power dynamics and social interactions. I think about who's holding the power and to what end and what is their goal and how are they feeling about it and do they notice and all these things. I spend a lot of time thinking about living in the world with other people.

Nikko Snyder (: 46:58

you've totally touched on kind of the nitty gritty, like day to day, how you divide up bedtime routine and like how you incentivize or bribe your children to like, know, like just like things that work, right? Like how do you turn it on? Like you're a working artist, you are like grinding this stuff out on the daily. Are there tricks that you need to like turn it out or like turn on like creative process or just physical process? Yeah.

life hacks, tips and tricks. How are you doing it?

Sarah Beatty (: 47:30

for generating ideas, just stop caring so much to do it. And deadlines are the best. I set myself up with real life, there's consequences if I don't do a thing, and that's the thing I need to motivate me. Otherwise I'll be like, oh, I don't know if it's good enough. I'll just be stuck in the mire if I don't have real world consequences. So real world consequences and not having time to get all concerned about it, just like.

having to do it is the best for me. Like because getting in your head and being worried about being good enough and being a perfectionist and all that, none of that helps you make anything at all. It's better and also this is another thing. Just stop being a perfectionist. Like don't care so much. Stop caring so much about everything. It doesn't matter. In the end, like we're all dust. Who cares? Like just make the best of it that you can. Stop trying to make everything perfect because it does like...

Perfection's boring. What's the point? Just enjoy the grossness of your stuff. Like just go do it and make it half baked and leave it. Like it's fine. Just I think that was like the best thing that I try to do all the time where I'm just like just leave it. Stop. Don't fix it. Just go and keep going. And then at the end maybe think about what you were going to edit, but stop trying so hard. Just like actually do it because that's the thing you're getting out of it.

And then like the repetition of continuing to do something, that's when you get better. You can make decisions faster. It's not so painful, but just like keep going and keep going and stop, just stop caring. Honestly, stop caring about it. That's helped me immensely just like, and because I can be really locked down by fears of not being good enough and like, you know, I really do care about things like proportional representation, like I actually do. And it...

hurts me because I'm just like, oh, that arm's too long. And then I won't do it. So I have to work against it actively and be really messy and rough and quick and make it ugly and then not care. And just even leaving it on something that's going to last a million years and being like, yeah, it's an ugly bat. I don't care. Whatever. Someone might like it and maybe they won't. And it doesn't matter. It's great. It's so liberating. So that's my favorite thing that I've learned in my 40s.

Nikko Snyder (: 49:51

love that. As a parent, are you able to apply that same philosophy to parenting? Like perfectionism, screw it.

Sarah Beatty (: 50:00

Yeah,

for now. That took a long time, because I really wanted to do it right and be good at it. And now I'm really okay with not being the best at it. I'm not the best parent. I think I'm okay. And I learned your kids will see the ugliness of you. And I feel like I just want to be truthful with them as much as I can. I screw up all the time. Like I said, I get upset. I get overwhelmed and upset.

And then I have to apologize, like I apologize constantly to them, because I'm just like, I got too mad, I'm so sorry. And they know that I love them. And I feel like that's a thing I'm doing well, is like, I'm a good parent in that my kids know I'm fully committed to them, I accept them completely. I'm in their corner for their life, whatever happens. But I kind of suck a lot of the time. I'm a shitty person sometimes, and they get to see that.

I'm trying to like, just like embody that too. Like, just let it go. Like, it's okay. Try to be authentic and let them know how much they mean. I try to do that. Let them know how much they mean to me. And like that, like them just being who they are is like the best and like, we can all work on cleaning our rooms, but ultimately that's not like the type of person you are, whether you're messy or not, who cares? Being committed to each other is like...

the most important. So yeah, did like I do try to like just let it go now. I try to just be like, sorry, I sucked yesterday. I'll try harder. you know. Anyway, that's like maybe that's my nugget. It's just like, like being yourself around your kids, like letting them see who you are.

Nikko Snyder (: 51:45

Okay, so I kind of sidetracked you on that because I wanted to hear if you were a perfectionist parent, which you are not. Anything else about your practice, like that philosophy of just keep going, don't stop, don't overthink, don't try to perfect. What else is helpful to you?

Sarah Beatty (: 51:51

Obviously not, no.

I mean, this is one that's taking me forever and I'm still working on is just to like yourself enough to like to feel like your interests, your ideas, what you want to pursue is good. It's good. Do it. Like trust yourself. Takes so long. get, I mean, not for everyone, but for me, I was like, I'm still insecure. Like I was a very insecure kid, very shy, know, like overly sensitive. I spent too much time like,

freaking out about things. Like, it just... I don't know, it doesn't help. It doesn't gain you happiness to be so embroiled in the being good enough or smart enough. Let it be. Like, who cares if you're not the smartest person in the room? You still have something to contribute. Like, enjoy your individual weirdness. It's okay to just, like, follow through on, like, what the direction that you're finding yourself in and not overthink it and, like, just see what happens. Like, it's so much more joyful.

Nikko Snyder (: 53:02

That's really a really helpful message for somebody who's right in the midst of trying to start a new project, which is this project. Yeah, well, I'd like, yeah, really try to just like keep going and not spiral into that. Like, why am I doing this? What can I possibly contribute? Yeah, yeah. So thank you for that reminder.

Sarah Beatty (: 53:10

Stop caring.

pleasure. Great. Honestly, consequences are great for real. And I think like taking yourself seriously and being like, I am going to do this and this is important. Even if it's just important for me, it's worth sharing. So I'm going to take myself seriously enough to follow through on this stuff and not listen to the voices as I'm not good enough and not listen to the voices as like nobody's going to care about you.

Just continue, because it's your journey in your life. And it's worth it to follow through on that and to take yourself seriously and to care enough about yourself to take yourself seriously. Even if you're doing something that's a joke, take the joke seriously. Bring it. Because I don't know, I want to see the weird stuff. Show me what you got. Do something strange. We all get really worried about the times when we feel dry in our mind. I think it's like universal, a writer's block thing.

feeling like you have nothing to offer. You have all these constipated feelings of wanting to do something. I think take the pressure off for me is the one thing that's helped just to stop. There is working through it. Working through it is essential. Keep working, keep working, keep working. But don't worry about it. Just the worrying about it and making it a big thing, I think it's the thing that stops all creativity.

Go for a walk. Walking is the best thing anyone could ever do for feeling better. Listen to music when you're driving. There's just your little thoughts and your little ideas that come as you go through a day. Those are the things that are worth exploring, not the things that come to you when you're sitting in front of a notebook. Creative stuff comes from living. Yeah.

Nikko Snyder (: 55:19

also want to give you a chance for some shameless self-promotion if there's anything, anything coming up like online presence, whatever, like whatever you would like people to know about accessing you and your work.

Sarah Beatty (: 55:28

yeah.

You can find me at Objects and Feelings on Instagram. It's the best way to connect with me. I have a sorely neglected website that I put at the bottom of my list of things to do all the time and never get to. So if you want to see work that I haven't done for years, please go to my website www.objectsandfeelings.com. I respond to emails readily and I do love compliments, so it's nice if you drop me a line. I tend to sell things in person and through stores.

If you want a list of the stores you can find me at, just send me a note because I didn't put on my website. I hate selling stuff. So probably just look at my Instagram and then say hi.

Nikko Snyder (: 56:20

Thank you for doing this. It's really exciting and I appreciate you and your time.

Sarah Beatty (: 56:29

Cool, well thank you for the experience. It was really nice for me to be able to talk about myself for a long time. was great.

It's so luxury, like it was like free therapy. So thanks again. I also, more than that, I felt like really comfortable talking to you. So thank you for that.

Are you gonna beep out my potty mouth moments?

I mean, it depends on how animated I'm feeling.

No kidding. Okay, well said.