Welcome to episode two of Mother, Creator, where I share conversations about creativity in motherhood and all the mess, joy and complexity that can bring.
In this episode I’m chatting with creative mentor Charlie Swift of Intentional Creatives about Creativity as a family value, putting yourself in the way of creativity, and the unravelling and then becoming of early motherhood.
Find Charlie on Instagram @_charlieswift and me on Instagram at @zoepickburn.
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TRANSCRIPT STARTS HERE
Charlie: [00:00:00] I think mothers are being creative constantly just play is creative, you know, like playing with a young baby can be creative. The way you make food together can be creative, having music on in the house and just bringing these little elements into your everyday. I feel like creates an air of creativity in your lives.
Zoe: Hi, this is Mother Creator, conversations about creativity in motherhood and all the mess and joy and complexity that can bring. I'm Zoe and I'm a writer , and today I'm in conversation with Charlie Swift.
Zoe: So do you want to start by sort of introducing yourself, what you do, What your creative kind of practice looks like,, and what season of motherhood you're in?
Charlie: Yes. Hi. [00:01:00] Thank
you. Yeah, I'm Charlie Swift.
, I am a business mentor to creative mamas, as I say, which means I support women building their creative businesses alongside raising their family, which sort of encompasses all the businessy stuff as well as the life stuff because I think those things are intrinsically linked and can't really be separated.
So, my support covers, yeah, a multitude of things with the women I work with in terms of myself, I mean, a lot of my creative practice sort of revolves around that. That's my one to one work. But then I create a lot of content around those themes. So around motherhood and creativity, I share a lot on those things on Instagram.
and I also write a bit on Substack now , a lot of my creative practice kind of goes into those digital forms, around photography and creating videos and writing. And then I have other more like hobbies, I suppose, on the side. I do a lot of scrapbooking these [00:02:00] days, a lot of cooking and baking.
Yeah, so my creative practice is around those sort of things, mostly. In terms of the season I'm in, I have two little boys, one is six and one is four and so in September, the eldest will be going into year two and my youngest is starting school, so it's kind of like I'm on the cusp of a new chapter really.
Zoe: That's exciting. My little girl. going to be two next week and I already, I keep saying I'll start such a thing when she's in school. When she's in school, I'll have time
Charlie: yeah, I know, I know. Yeah, but then school comes along and there isn't always that much time .
It's been interesting having my eldest in school. It brings its own, you know, a lot of other stuff with it, but , yeah, it will mean I do have a lot more free time because my youngest is only in childcare two days a week at the moment. So it's going to be a very big shift in terms of like my working week and having free child free time every weekday will definitely be a [00:03:00] big difference.
I'm, keeping my expectations. Gentle.
Zoe: Sensible. I think that's always the way with just any parenting thing, just keep your expectations really low.
Charlie: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. I don't want to go into it being like, right, September, that's it. I'm going to do this and my business is going to, you know, fundamentally change.
I know these things take a while to settle in, so yeah, I'm going to ride out the end of the year and maybe with January I'll set some bigger goals.
Zoe: And I really like what you were saying there about how,, a lot of the time life and business and creative work, I think particularly for women and for mothers, there just aren't any lines, there's no balance. There's not a line in between them that they're all just part of the same thing, aren't they?
Charlie: Yeah, absolutely. I think, especially as, creative service providers. I think a lot of the kind of creative energy goes into that content creation bit. Well, from like my friends and people I work with, it's quite different if you're a designer maker and you've got this physical product that you're creating [00:04:00] or, if you're in a different sort of full time employment and you've got a creative practice on the side.
So for me, it's quite hard to separate. Yeah, my work from my creativity. I do try. That's why I'm trying to incorporate more things that like, you know, aren't about work, and I may share them and that's like I'm joyfully sharing my creativity. But yeah, I think it's also important to try have those separate things for ourselves sometimes, because otherwise it all becomes, you know, for content and for work. And as much as I actually enjoy creating for that sort of thing, I also, like to keep some things away from that.
Zoe: Absolutely, yeah, I think that's really important , not monetizing all of our hobbies and, creativity and, things that we get to do.
Yeah, so can you talk to me a little bit about how or whether becoming a mother changed or impacted your creativity and your creative ambitions? What was your creative life like before you had kids?
Charlie: Yeah, it's an interesting one. I mean, I don't think I'm someone who's like, there was this [00:05:00] big shift that motherhood brought in terms of my creativity or even personality really. Like obviously it changed me massively it would be silly to say it didn't, but it's also hard to pinpoint anything. Yeah it didn't feel like this there was this sudden shift or anything in terms of like I still kind of just wanted to, I was already a creative person who did a lot of the things I carried on enjoying.
It obviously changed my sort of outlook and it certainly changed how much time I had available to practice these things. But yeah, it's more just been like a gradual I suppose unraveling and then becoming, you know, of like, it's really changed. And obviously I'm out of that baby stage.
So I feel like, you know, if you'd asked me that a few years ago, the answer probably would have been quite different, but I definitely feel like I've ridden out those early years where it all feels very intense, and it's allowed me to come out the other side and just integrate things.
And it's, it doesn't always look [00:06:00] like, the creative practice I will hopefully have when I have more and more time, but I feel like I've found a balance with it now and like I'm over that hump of being like, Oh, I can never create. I don't have time for this. I'm completely exhausted because I think in those early days, you're just so drained of energy and you have such like a lot of inspiration and things you want to be doing, but there's just never any time or headspace for it.
I feel like it's sort of completely changed me and it hasn't, if that makes sense. Like, I always wanted to be creative and I've continued to do so. I've just integrated that within my family life.
Zoe: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, to be honest.
And it's quite reassuring, as a mother of an almost two year old to hear that it does get a little bit less intense eventually.
Charlie: Yeah, it definitely does. I mean, you know, there's obviously different intensities, but I just think the sleep deprivation, that's just such a drain that can't be really solved in any way until they get a little bit older and you suddenly realize you're getting a bit [00:07:00] more sleep, even if you're still, you know, everyone was still in our bed last night, but it's just not the same as when they're little.
I've certainly wanted to just have creativity as one of our family values almost. Like, I just want my kids to be living a creative life and without, like, no pressure on them to be, artistes or anything but I just want creativity to be part of how we live as a family and that's sort of like doing creative things but just having a creative mindset as a family so it's definitely like I think cemented that as a value of something I want my kids to have as well.
Zoe: And that kind of brings me around to my third question, we'll come back to the second one. How you use that creative thinking in your motherhood and in your parenting. I love the idea of having creativity as a family value.
What are the creative decisions that you have made about the way , you parent your boys?
Charlie: Yeah, I love this question. In terms of making creativity a value again, I mean, it changes so much because as they grow up, you know, , they change and what [00:08:00] they want to do changes a lot.
I've always, just wanted to incorporate creativity into our daily lives. And I think away from the sort of like actively, doing something creative, like a craft or, something. Like you might think, Oh, I'm doing a creative activity. I just try and like, I think motherhood is inherently creative.
Like I think mothers that are being creative constantly just play is creative, you know, like playing with a young baby can be creative. The way you make food together can be creative, having music on in the house and just bringing these little elements into your everyday. I feel like creates an air of creativity in your lives.
It doesn't have to be that you're doing something creative, that it might have looked like before, like an actual craft or activity. I just thought of making a creative atmosphere at home. And then, I have this phrase that I've had that is: putting yourself in the way of creativity, like making it really easy, making crafts accessible, making [00:09:00] things you want to do that feel creative accessible.
Like laying a nice table, like bringing nature in, like all these sort of little things that I think kids just love doing naturally, just trying to make that a part of your daily lives.
Zoe: Yeah, I love that. I love the concept of making creativity a part of your daily life and a part of your daily life as a family, not just something you do on your own.
Sometimes I think some creative practices, particularly things like writing and Drawing or artwork are seen as a very solitary thing, and that's just not something that's possible in early motherhood, I think, for most people. Yeah, so I love the idea of integrating that into your family life and your day to day life.
Yeah, which kind of brings me around to question two. What does creating look like for you in this season of motherhood? What do you do to maintain your creativity? And on a practical level, what supports your [00:10:00] creativity, enables you to be creative?
Charlie: Yeah, so I guess aside from that more everyday stuff that I was saying, that's like just bringing in the everyday creativity.
In this season, Like I said I've really, got into the scrapbooking recently, which has been a lovely thing to connect with. And I've always tried to do like crafty things and just have little projects on the go, but it's actually been something I've committed to in a more like consistent way.
And then I think it's just helped having the light evenings. It means after bedtime I feel like I can actually do something a bit more creative with my hands. I've also just been doing it on the sofa in the evening. So I think having something you can do in the evening, whether you've got the telly on or, you know, just like alongside something, even if you're a bit tired, just doing five minutes .
I think that's also been a real important part for me is, like we were saying it before, lowering expectations, but also knowing that just showing up to doing something for even five, ten minutes can make all the difference and you feel like you've done it. And in some ways that can be [00:11:00] like frustrating and disappointing because you know, you'd love to have hours of time, but like you just don't.
And I've really had to accept that and learn that actually just five minutes a day can make all the difference. So yeah, personally, I've been doing a lot of that recently. It kind of just looks like carving out that time and the more I do it, I think I feel like this is the same for a lot of people as well.
The more you do it, the more you want to do something creative. So I just pick up my craft a lot, I'll scrapbook a lot. And now I found that my kids are just doing it alongside me. My eldest is obsessed with making things out of paper like origami. So yeah, we're doing a lot of paper play in the house at the moment.
But I love to see how they copy and they put their own spin on it. And like I said, that's not technically something I was trying to draw them into, but they've just seen me doing it. And I will just have it out and have my craft around. So that's certainly one way I've been connecting to my creativity a lot recently.
Zoe: Yeah, and I really like that [00:12:00] kind of doing it around your children and alongside your children, there's sometimes a feeling that we have to lock ourselves away somewhere in a garret to do things, which is just obviously, A, not the case, and B, not possible a lot of the time, as a mother, certainly not in early motherhood.
I've started in the morning, well, I used to have a daily journaling practice in the morning, and then that sort of fell by the wayside a little bit, but I've started doing it a lot more, and I've started getting out my daughter's, crayons and stickers and paper, and she gets to sort of do it alongside me a little bit sometimes.
Charlie: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I always used to do morning pages and I have found that it's just so hard with the kids and I do really miss it as a practice, but I think it's trying to find a balance of creating alongside them and finding joy in that is so good.
But if you are also missing that solo time, just like I said, finding those little pockets and making them a thing.
If you're really missing it, the flip side, I think is sometimes then just booking on a, onto a [00:13:00] workshop or you know, going out of your way, being like, you know what, I'm not even going to be around the kids and this is going to be totally for me and it's going to fill me up creatively.
Or going on that concept of artist dates that, Julia Cameron has in the artist way or like carving out their time. So you have, are filling both buckets because although it's so good, it can also be frustrating. Like at the weekend I got up early and my kid was awake at half six.
I was like, well, let's do some scrapbooking. It was great. But within half an hour, it had descended into chaos. Like these things do. And I think it's just trying to find that balance of being like, that's okay. Because I know I will also fill my cup up in a different way.
Zoe: Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's important to acknowledge The support that we have around us as well.
I know not everyone has access to that I've got my mom's really close by my husband parents In the evening quite a lot when I go to creative workshops and to meet up with creative friends and things like that. So having that village and that community is also a part of my creative practice in a way.
Charlie: Yeah, and obviously that is also so seasonal, [00:14:00] like there are, you know, I couldn't have gone out when I was breastfeeding, I couldn't have done that in certain periods of my life as a mother at all, it's definitely like something that's become more easy, as they get older, but also something I have to remind myself that it's like, Oh, I can do that now because actually I've got in the habit of not doing that.
Sometimes I do think we have to just come back and reflect on if things aren't feeling good, like, where can we find those time? And like, what does that look like in this season? And reminding ourselves that maybe, yeah, maybe we can take an evening to do this thing or something.
Zoe: Yeah. I like the idea of reflecting on it and being a bit intentional about your creative practice and making time to, to create and to connect and to fill your own cup and all that sort of important stuff.
Charlie: It obviously keeps bringing its challenges, but I think especially in terms of your creativity and having, it's not just time, is it? It's like actual just head space to be like, oh, I suddenly have the energy and the the energy to do this. The space inside me to actually create something and I think a lot of the time in those early years It's more like this internal feeling and you don't [00:15:00] always have the time and energy to Get it out of you and that's where a lot of the frustration comes from. But yeah, definitely it does just get easier.
Zoe: So, yeah, thank you for joining me in conversation .
Charlie: No, thank you for having me. Yeah, it's such a brilliant thing to be talking about and everyone's experiences are so different, but also like, I'm sure there's just so many common threads that your guests will have.
Zoe: Do you want to tell people, if anyone wants to find you, I know that what you Do kind of your mentoring and stuff might actually be quite helpful for some of the people that might be listening.
Charlie: Yeah. So, you can find all the information about how I work with people at charlieswift. com. And then you can find me hanging out, sharing a lot on these sorts of themes on Instagram. Underscore Charlie Swift on Instagram.
And I mean, that's probably the best place to head to find all my links. Cause I'm also on Substack, sharing more sort of longer form essays around intentional living and [00:16:00] creativity.
Zoe: Thanks for listening to Mother Creator. You can find me on Instagram at Zoe Pickburn. Please subscribe to the podcast on Substack, it's free. And if you're enjoying the pod, please share it with your friends. It makes a massive difference.
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