Welcome to episode five of Mother, Creator! This is where I share conversations about creativity in motherhood and all the mess, joy, and complexity it can bring.
In this episode, I’m chatting with photographer and mother-of-one Christa Chadwick, who founded Tribe, one of my favourite networks for self-employed women in Leeds. We talk about the inevitable contradictions of motherhood, the need to create on purpose around small children, and taking baby steps as a creative business owner.
Find Christa on Instagram @christachadwickphotography and me on Instagram at @zoepickburn.
The podcast will always be free to listen to, but if and when I secure ad sponsorship, there will also be an ad-free version available for paid subscribers. Paid subscribers also get monthly prompts to write through motherhood with me — you can upgrade here for £4/mo.
I hope you enjoy this episode, please leave love and feedback in the comments, and share the podcast in the mum group chat.
TRANSCRIPT STARTS HERE
Christa: Sorry, she's really cheering for Mr. Tumble in the background
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 Christa Chadwick.
Zoe: Hi.
Christa: Hi.
Zoe: How are you doing?
Christa: I'm good, thank you. How are you?
Zoe: I'm very well, thank you.
So do you want to start by introducing yourself, what you do, what your creative practice is, if it's separate to what you do, and what season of motherhood you're in at the mument.
Christa: Okie cokie. I'm Christa. I'm mum to Eadie, who is now two, and she's just a whirlwind of joyful chaos, I think is probably the best way to describe her at the mument. creative practice and my business is, I'm a photographer. There's two sides to my business. So, on the one hand, I would describe myself as a professional people watcher.
I photograph Lifestyle, family portraits and weddings and sort of all the joy and the calm and the crazy kind of things that happen in life. I love photographing that for people and helping them to cherish those memories. And then on the flip side of that, I use my background and my training in commercial photography to help small businesses to tell their story. And to help them to stand out online and in marketing by creating like a cohesive visual story and cohesive visual kind of content, for them.
So yeah, that's my kind of creative I suppose, day to day practice, is in photography. Outside of photography I'm Unfortunately, I'm not as creative as I would maybe like to be anymore, um, but I think that's probably the demands of having a child, you know, spare time is not, not that it's non- existent, but it's normally taken up doing other things.
Zoe: Yeah, that sounds very familiar. And then that sort of leads me quite nicely onto the first question, which is how or whether, becoming a mother changed or impacted your creativity and your creative ambitions ?
Christa: Oh, I mean, I'd say it massively, massively impacted probably not so much my creative ambitions, but my ability to be creative. I think the first six months of Edie's existence, um, I was massively overwhelmed and sort of consumed by her and her needs, and everything that kind of goes along with having a newborn and being a first- time mum, like I really sort of struggled.
with that. And as a consequence of that, I struggled to put myself into the equation. I don't think you really can put yourself first as, as a mum, I don't know whether that really happens for anyone. If anyone's got any tips, if you've got any tips on how to put yourself first, please share them with me.
But I really struggled to give myself time to do things for myself. You know, like I said about sort of spare time and things like time that I wasn't, directly looking after Eadie there was a mountain of other things that needed to be done. I felt like my time away from her needed to be productive, whether that was doing housework or going and doing the shopping, there's kind of like the menial day to day tasks or whether it was, I needed to use my time to earn money and start easing myself back into work.
Although I am able to be creative as part of my job, I don't have time to necessarily be creative for me, and maybe do the things that I used to do. I think that's one of the things that's massively changed is that I have to kind of prioritise how I use my time.
And it's a little bit easier now that she's at nursery a day a week, and things. But, yeah, I used to paint and draw and craft and, you know, do all those kind of things that were just for me. Or I'd make things for people for their birthdays and Christmases and things like that. And I'd get, you know, the kind of, therapeutic, calming effects of doing those things which were really good for my well being.
And now I just don't really have time. So I've found other things to do to um, I suppose like appease that and different elements of my work I'm able to be a bit more painterly and creative with but it's I don't know, it's been a juggle.
Zoe: Yeah, I think that juggle is very familiar. Me and you are obviously in quite a similar spot in terms of our kids are pretty much the same age.
And yeah, I found that I'm still really struggling to get back into a lot of the messier creative stuff, if that makes sense. the writing and things like that that I do for work and even the things, writing not as part of work, it's something I can pick up and put down quite quickly and easily. But yeah, any like painting or drawing or anything you have to get anything out that's bigger than a notebook.
Christa: I think for me, especially at the moment, I feel like Everything that I'm doing, it needs to kind of have a purpose, like there needs to be a reason why I'm doing it rather than it being just for me.
And I mean, I know really that doing it for me, because I find it therapeutic and calming and I get enjoyment out of it. That is a reason and a purpose to do it. But when you've got, a list as long as your arm of things that you need to do. Unfortunately doing things for yourself takes the back foot which is a shame, but it's something I'm getting a bit better at and I think as Eadie gets older and she goes to nursery, more and then eventually to school and, you know, university, I'll get my life back.
I'm not wishing the time away, at all. Like I absolutely love being able to spend time with her, which is a joyful thing of being like self employed is that I can. You will know yourself, you can work around them. Which is something that, you know, if you had a 9 to 5 like normal job, you wouldn't get to be able to spend as much time with them, but there's other sort of sacrifices that you have to make along the way.
Zoe: And then kind of piggybacking off that, I think you've possibly started to answer this a little bit, but when you do get the chance to, to be creative, how do you do that? In your current season of motherhood, how do you, you know, Maintain that like on a practical level what supports your ability to do Any of that creative stuff to get your camera out?
Christa: Yeah, so in terms of work, I'm, really lucky that I am able to fit it in around the Eadie.
You know, she goes to nursery one day a week. The grandparents help out as much as they can, but they live over in Manchester. They're not around the corner. Like I have to plan things a lot better than maybe I used to. I can't be quite as reactive to things anymore. And you know, just do things, at the drop of a hat.
Maybe part of it's part of becoming a mum. Maybe it's part of having that creative background is that you are kind of a bit more adaptable to things. Like, in terms of work, I've managed to find things that allow me to be more creative than just with my camera.
One of the ways I actually eased myself back into work was, through doing retouching for other photographers. One of the first jobs that I had was actually, retouching some, bride and groom wedding portraits, and they're in this beautiful, beautiful, floral garden and the background needed massively extending. So I had to do quite a lot of painterly sort of illustrative work to recreate that and fill the scene in and retouch this photograph.
And That sort of made me realize that I, I do, I miss painting and I miss drawing and miss being creative just for me. But this is a way that I can do it where it kind of, it has a purpose. I'm getting enjoyment out of it. I'm getting paid for it. And Eadie is happy and occupied. So everything sort of started to kind of align together And I think i'm really really lucky that I have a supportive husband who's also in a creative job.
He's a graphic designer. So he gets it. He gets the need to be creative. And to have that creative freedom But he has a more of a nine to five structured job
and then one of the things that i've also tried to do to to be creative In motherhood is to find things that we can do together.
Like, Eadie loves drawing, and she loves painting, and she loves getting messy. And whereas I don't necessarily always want the mess at home, if she wants to do something, I'll try and get as involved as possible with her. One of the things that I've found really lovely is while she's, Drawing and coloring and playing with the stickers and whatever is actually getting my sketchbook out and using her crayons and drawing her. I used to love when I was in college doing the life drawing classes So i've tried to try to just take like a sort of five minutes while she's Playing with whatever she's playing with and drawing what she's drawing To do a little bit for me and just get my brain slowly going back into like a different way of thinking
And even just like silly things.
So when we had, you know, the three days of summer a few weeks ago, we were outside playing and like I say, she loves messy, loves water. So I got all the paint brushes out and we had a big tub of water and she was painting on the flags and I started painting on the flags outside and it was just so therapeutic, just to do that kind of practice with the brush stroking.
It's finding like different ways to be a little bit creative and letting go of the fact that in the past, and with work, being creative is for a purpose. I know I've said, I feel my time needs to be used. Purposefully, and productively, but I don't know, in terms of creativity, in motherhood, being creative with Eadie or alongside her is just really, really joyful. And I get a lot out of that for me.
I think motherhood is just one big contradiction, isn't it? Maybe that's the best way to describe it.
Zoe: Yeah, it does, and I really liked what you were saying about, being able to be creative alongside other things.
Yeah, it would be great if you had hours and hours to do a creative pursuit that was just for yourself, but being able to bring that creativity into whether it's your parenting or whether it's your work or, to use those creative muscles, in those little pockets of, time and space that you get as a parent.
Christa: I think that's, that's the thing. What does Sophie Cliff say? It's like prioritizing joy, what are the things that you enjoy doing and how can you find little ways or little times throughout your day or throughout the week or whatever to just sprinkle them in, I suppose.
I'd love nothing more than to sit with a canvas and my paints and, spend a full day just creating and, go back to like art school vibe and be in that headspace where I didn't really have responsibilities or anything else to do, but like that's not practical.
So five or 10 minutes with Edie's crayons. That will absolutely do me for now. Because I'm sure at some point in the future, I'll be able to spend more time doing different creative things. You take what you can get, I suppose.
Zoe: Yeah, definitely. The next question, you sort of already partly answered it in the previous question. But you might have a bit more to add. I don't know.
So yeah, how do you use creative thinking in your mothering? Less about getting those paints out and doing crafts with your daughter and more about maybe the creative decisions that you make about the way that you choose to parent her.
Christa: Both me and her dad are creative people. She might not be. She's interested in creative things at the moment, but that doesn't mean she needs to follow a creative path, just because we did, but I think being creative in some sense is really important. Why is there not more emphasis on it in schools?
It gives you options, doesn't it?
Zoe: Yeah, 100%. And I think even if she doesn't end up being, You know, in a traditionaly creative job. You don't have to have a creative job to be creative and to think creatively.
Christa: I think one of the best things about having sort of a creative mind or a creative thought process is probably being adaptable because a lot of creative jobs, it's all about problem solving, isn't it, and how you can solve problems in a creative manner, or like a non -linear manner, and there's nothing more problematic and non linear than the mind of a toddler.
I mean, it's hard to say, because I've never done this before. She's my first, uh, first child, only child. I don't know what I'm doing. You wing it, but maybe that is part of the creative, thinking and creative process that you're adaptable to things.
You try different things. It's a process, like with any creative pursuit, you experiment and you try different things and some things work and some things don't. I think with her, I've been so lucky, like, she's quite an easy, on the whole, like, 95 percent of the time, quite an easy child. She has her moments, definitely.
But I think having that kind of creative mindset's been good in the sense that it's allowed me to be adaptable and not to feel rigid with things, especially in terms of like routines, cause like they don't stick to routines. And I think when I first became a mum, I really thought that, that whole you know, you need to wake up at seven and you need to give them breakfast half an hour after this.
And then they need to have a nap for an hour and a half and you read so much stuff online and it all feels so, so rigid. and maybe I, in those early days interpreted it wrong.
I think by being creative with parenting or kind of thinking about things in a different way, way and being a bit looser, I suppose, with your approach, is easier because you have to go with the flow, really, as a parent.
You've just got to adapt to the situation. And I think having a creative background I think it allows you to do that a bit easier.
Like I say, I've not done this before. I don't know what your thoughts are.
Zoe: Yeah, absolutely. earlier you were saying, having your daughter has made it a lot harder to, at work be r eactive and adaptable and all the rest of it. It feels like that's maybe because all that reaction and adaptability is being channeled into your daughter in the current season.
And I definitely feel that as well. It's one of the things I find most frustrating about parenthood, that you can't just be like, right, we're gonna do this. Right. We're gonna go off and do that. Right. I'm gonna, I'm just gonna start a new thing and I'm gonna spend hours and hours and hours on it.
Christa: Yeah, and that's like definitely something that I've really struggled with, especially with like a creative practice. You know, when, when, when the creativity, when it, when it hits and you get that, like, Ooh, I really just want to do this.
Or, it, it gets you and you need to do it and you need to do it then. Cause it's going to go, you know what I mean? Like, and you can't do that when you've got a toddler running around causing chaos, you can't leave them to. Cause more chaos and climb the furniture like that's just not how it works.
And then, you know, like they go down for an hour, hour and a half nap or whatever in the afternoon. I'm not necessarily feeling creative then. That's something that I really struggled with. I have to pick which tasks I'm going to do. Like if I'm not feeling creative, I do a boring admin task, do your mileage or sort your receipts out or whatever.
And at least you're doing something that's a little bit productive.
Zoe: You say when she goes down for a nap for me, I don't know how long that's going to be.
I could have half an hour. I could have an hour and a half she slept for two and a half hours yesterday. But then it also means that once she's woken up that's like a hard deadline. There's no, I can't just snooze the alarm or be a bit late for whatever I'm going to do next,
once she's woken up, I have to go up and go straight back into mum mode.
Christa: Yeah. It's quite exhausting. You know, flicking that switch from one mode to the other, it's quite tiring. And then obviously on top of all of that, you've got to try and fit in, you know, spending time with your partner and going, seeing your friends and like doing all the other stuff.
It's a massive struggle and I think that's one of the reasons why I find it really hard to do things just for myself because there's always somebody else that needs my attention, whether it's her or my husband. but I have recently, one of the things I've done is, as well as starting Tribe, which has been amazing.
I've joined a couple of other things and one of them was, Wonder Club. I've been able to schedule. An hour and a half or whatever in an evening and do like a co Creativity meetup online. That's been really good.
Zoe: Yeah, can you just quickly explain what Tribe is for anyone that's listening that doesn't know?
Christa: Okay, yes, so Tribe is, a networking group or a community of self employed, side hustling, freelancing women in Leeds.
It's laid back meetups. There's no pressure for referrals. You don't have to stand up and do a sales pitch. There's no breakfast meetings. It's a nice community of women who get the struggles of being self employed and people who want to share in the highs and lows, who want to cheer you on, who want to support each other.
Zoe: I think that's perfect. I agree with you that having A community there of other people who get it. And to be quite honest, other women and other mothers specifically, who are trying to create things around all the other stuff that women and mothers have to do.
Is really kind of, it feels like we can each other a little bit and cheer each other on.
Christa: Yeah, definitely.
Just do it. Just put yourself out there. You know, like, fuck it. Just go and do it. Like, if it works, it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't really matter. Like, you tried. You're not gonna know if you don't go and do it. Yeah,
Zoe: That all kind of cycles back into motherhood as well. I think before , I was a lot more, um, scared to try new things. And there's a bit of me now that I'm like, well, so what?
It doesn't matter. In the scheme of things, it'll either work or it won't. It doesn't matter if it doesn't work.
Christa: Exactly. And I think one of the joyful things about having a child is you start to see the world through a child's eyes again and appreciate the little things that, they're enjoying and you watch them trying to walk and trying to crawl and trying to do all these big, big things for them, which we take for granted.
And they fall over and they just get back up and they carry on . You can take a lot from that like into your business. They're little wobbly steps. You've got to start somewhere yourself, so just go for it. If you fall on your bum, get back up and try again.
Christa: Okay, fabulous. Thank you for having me.
Happy podcasting.
Zoe: Bye.
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.
Share this post