Artistry in NYC: A Journey of Creation and 'The Slip' with Author Prudence Peiffer

And it would. I remember I was like very gingerly sipping lemonade because I was just pregnant and incredibly nauseous and just trying to hold it together for this very important meeting, you know where, hopefully, I would you know, get an agent and you know, be able to think about next steps and working on the book. And if you told me that you know it would be three children later that the book would come out, I would have, you know, just started laughing maniacally. But that you know, that's part of the story and the adventure. I think of being a working and a writing mom.

Welcome to the Moms who Create podcast. I'm your host, kelly Heil, and I am thrilled to share a podcast that celebrates the incredible moms who are pursuing their creative passions. Are you a mom who feels like you just can't balance your creative pursuits with the demands of motherhood? Each week, I'm bringing you interviews with accomplished and talented moms who have made their creative dreams a reality. I talk to writers, artists, musicians and entrepreneurs who have successfully found a way to do what they love while raising the ones they love. Some of the writers I talk to are New York Times bestselling authors, while some are self-published first-time authors. I also share my own insights and resources to help you navigate the unique challenges of being a mom who creates. So, whether you're an early bird or a night owl, a seasoned pro or just starting out, I want you to know that you can pursue your creative passions and be an amazing mom at the same time. Grab a cup of coffee, a notebook and get ready to join our community of like-minded moms who are on a mission to live intentionally and create with purpose. This is the Moms who Create podcast, and I can't wait to share this journey with you. Hi everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of the Moms who Create podcast. So today I'm chatting with the ever so amazing Prudence Piper. Prudence is an accomplished art historian, writer and managing editor of the creative team at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. She just released her latest book titled the Slip, the New York City Street that Changed American Art Forever, published from Harper Collins. Prudence is a mom of three young children and we'll share a bit about her absolutely wonderful lit hub essay on writing, motherhood and creativity. With a PhD from Harvard University and an impressive career spanning positions at Art Forum Magazine and David's Warner, her writings have graced the pages of the New York Times, the New York Review of Books, art Forum and Book Forum, showcasing her expertise in modern and contemporary art. Prudence is brilliant. Enjoy today's episode. Prudence, first of all, thank you for being here and second of all, when I got an email about you to be on the podcast, I looked at your resume and if I had to make a resume, if I had to make a fake one that had all of this amazing stuff on it, like all of these positions and places I worked at, that was like the ultimate goal. It would be your real life I was like no, she's not real, this is just some pretend spam that I'm getting Like. I went to school for art, so I have my art degree and you know, I kind of dilly-dallyed in small art galleries and things like that and I was like I'm going to work the moment, one day I'm going to go to New York City and live in like a shoebox apartment and that never happened, but I always had that like dream. Let's see, you're an art historian, writer, an editor specialized in modern and contemporary art, director of content at MoMA in New York. You have your PhD from Harvard. You are a senior editor at Art Forum. I used to take the Art Forum magazines from like the common area in my art department in college and then I would just take them home with me in New York. It's supposed to, but that's how I could afford my collection of Art Forum magazines. Anyway, I digress. Thank you so much for being here. I am just really excited to hear from you today.

Well, kelly, thank you so much for having me on your very important podcast. I just I really love the whole theme and ethos behind this project that you've made, and so I'm really delighted to be here.

Oh, thank you. I'm delighted that you're here to talk to us. On top of all, I just said, you're also a mom, so let's just get started by having you introduce yourself to everybody.

Sure. Hi everyone, I'm Prudence Piper, otherwise known as Pru, and, as Kelly mentioned, I am the director of content at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and I also just wrote a book called the Slip, the New York City Street that changed American art forever. That a very long subtitle that just came out August 1st from Harper.

Fresh and new. It's really exciting. Yes, hot off the press.

Yeah, so the book is about this community of artists that came together to live in this very strange, obscure little street on the very southern tip of Manhattan called Coenty Slip, named after a very early 17th century Dutch settlers that were first there. And the Slip was at first a waterway in Manhattan where ships would come into birth, and it was the central market of the early New Amsterdam and the early colony of a sort of major hub of activity. Herman Melville quotes it in Moby Dick, and then, you know, by the time these artists were coming in the 1950s, it was mostly abandoned. In fact it was a bunch of kind of old maritime warehouses. There was a hotel for sailors at the very end of the street and it was just a very cheap place for these. You know, just arrived in New York, struggling artists to make their home and illegally, illegally live there and also make their art. And so my book is about, you know, the different kinds of artists that came there. There were painters, there were artists working in fiber arts, there were sculptures, there was an actress. So really artists working in all different kinds of media, making abstract work, making representation, representational work, and they really all had kind of breakthrough moment there and influenced art history in really interesting ways. But they were also really influenced by the street and by the materials that they found there, because it was a time of great demolition and sort of rebuilding, particularly in the downtown area of Manhattan, as a lot of the more maritime industry, lower level buildings were raised to make way for larger skyscrapers around the kind of new financial hub of Wall Street and downtown. But I think, you know, what became really fascinating to me as a kind of art historian nerd was that I realized my story would have to be about the city and about sort of broader just look at the history of this little street as well. And so it led me on this unexpected research and discoveries around. You know how this little street could be such a central place and then kind of go into obscurity and then once again, when the artists were there, become a such a central location when we think about kind of the influence of art history, even as the artists were jokingly saying that they were leaving Manhattan to go back to where they lived because it was sort of so quiet after 5pm when everyone sort of went home that worked in on Wall Street and in that district. So so, yeah, it was a really for me it was such a great discovery to to learn much more about the city where I live and work and and really the kind of importance of place in when we think about creativity. And you know, that's something that I kind of innately knew because I grew up in a place where there is a real culture and community around art. But it was amazing to to dive into, you know, old sale ledgers and crazy maps and just a lot of different archives than I would typically be looking at as an art historian.

It's amazing how many places that we can go by every day or see every day. We don't know the history of it, we don't know what used to happen there or whether it was like super significant or just like this thing that happened once and completely changed somebody's life. It's, it's so interesting, so it has to be really fun to just dig into that and do all the research and, you know, create a book from it to teach others. This happened here. Probably don't know about it, maybe you've never heard of it, but look, read, see, see what happened. And this was an important Part of time. This is an important piece of history. Yes, oh, it'll be fun Wow.

Yeah.

Congratulations, thank you, thank you. Do you have any more books that you're working on?

I'm no, no, I'm not allowed to mention that. I think my husband's like we need a break. Um, I mean, it was a real I. I was working on this project for Just about seven years. I I actually you know, just because it's so relevant to your podcast I, I remember the moment when I was, you know, having a conversation, the first moment where I kind of solidified Okay, this is going to be this project, I'm going to do um, and I was meeting with my I think at that point he was still my perspective agent, but, um, my amazing agent, elias Altman, and and it would I remember, I was like very gingerly sipping lemonade because I was just pregnant and incredibly nauseous Um, and just trying to hold it together for this very important meeting, you know when, hopefully, I would, you know, get an agent and and you know, be able to think about Next steps and and working on the book. And if you told me that you know it would be three children later that the book would come out, I would have, you know, just started laughing maniacally. But that you know that is. That's part of the, the story and and the. You know the adventure I think of being, of being a working and a writing mom is is kind of rolling with us, the unexpected.

Yeah, yeah, let's, let's dive into that a little bit more. You did it over seven years and three kids in the process. I have to hear your story on that. Like I said, dive a little bit deeper. Tell us how. How did you? I'm sure you had some ups and downs where you would work on it. You know hours and hours, days and days, and then you had another child, so I think probably had to back up a little bit. So kind of tell us how you found your balance between your writing and your motherhood, motherhood over those seven years.

Yeah, I mean, I think probably the the trickiest thing or the biggest challenge is I was also, you know, working full time, that whole time. So you know the books found, I think at the beginning I was working at art forum and then I was at david's runner gallery for a short time as director of content and then I've been at moma for almost five years and so, um, yeah, that's like a whole other story I think about. Even just the challenges of Working full time and and being a mom are kind of enough. But then I decided, yes, to add this additional chaos into the mix, and so I mean, you know there's there's very different, uh, chapters, I guess, to writing a book, not to use a bad pun, but and so you know, for this book there's a lot, there was a lot of kind of I was just kind of figuring out, okay, who are the people I need to talk with, what are the stories, where do I need to be doing the research, and so that you know that kind of took a little bit of time to unravel. And then you know there's the writing, then there's the editing piece of it and then there's a whole kind of end part too, around you know, the final production and all of that. So it is a really long journey and every part is a little bit different and kind of requires a little bit of a different part of your brain, I think, and a different kind of part of sort of commitment and time. I will say that I, you know, I probably haven't slept very much in the past seven years. I mean I did. I'm really a morning person and I think, you know, having children only focus that much more for me. So I would get up, you know, very early in the morning and write until my, you know, first child woke up in the day, and so I usually was able to get, you know, so I'm talking kind of like 4amish, so you could get, like you know, three hours or so of writing in before the kind of interruption and the work day, and I never was as successful writing at night. I mean, I think some people are, you know, night owls and can write through the night. I don't know. For me there's something about the light like I need I'm like a plant or something. I need light to feel productive and to kind of and so and then. So weekends became very important to me and I guess this is both a like a shout out and maybe a like a tip or a. You know, I think it's so important to have a supportive partner in your life who kind of understands what it is you're doing and supports that and, you know, kind of maybe even goes the extra mile. So, you know, I have an incredible husband, charles, who you know he took the kids on the weekends for long, you know, adventure trips, so that I did have, you know, larger stretches of time to write. I also was really lucky, I applied and received a grant from Andy Warhol Arts Writers grant and that allowed me, that gave me a bit of money and allowed me to take an extra month of maternity leave, and so, you know, so I was able to, you know, take four months of maternity leave and that that extra month gave me, you know, some continual time to write, which I think is like I've realized more and more, is like the dream of a writer is to have more than like a little chunk of time here and there and do some things. That to kind of that's still kind of my dream is to be able to like just go somewhere, go to a cabin in the woods for like two weeks uninterrupted. That, yes, and that sort of never happened in the process of this book. But you know, I think you learn, I learned to kind of work with what I had, which was already you know a lot of people sacrificing my parents also helping the childcare on the weekends to make you know, to make it possible, and so that's that's kind of you know a little bit of how, of how it came together and it sounds, you know, it was not all rosy. There was a lot of you know, frustrating times and something that I wrote about recently in an essay around kind of motherhood and writing for Lidhub is just that you can't. It's really hard. You know it's hard as a mother. You can't. There's a lot you can't control. I mean that's a huge part right of learning about being a mom and sort of letting go of a lot of things you thought you maybe could control in your life and you can't really plan for certain things, and I think that for me became a really interesting and humbling challenge because I would be given this Saturday like nine to five, to write oh my gosh, amazing and then I just couldn't write that day. Writing comes when it comes and it's not like oh great, I have this time, I absolutely can write. Sometimes you're just not feeling it and of course I would always in those moments try to then do research or organize a bibliography or some other thing that was useful in that time. But it could be very frustrating in the same way that you can't plan for when your child is going to wake up in the middle of the night and be really sick or have a crazy panterum or the kinds of things that take up a lot of mental and sometimes even physical space in full on you in terms of how you can then approach your own time and, I think, sometimes toggling back and forth between a really solitary vocation of working on a project versus the reality of what's right outside the frame, which is like a screaming child. It's very disorienting, but it also, of course, it helps you have, I think, perspective on what you're doing, and it helped me at least find a certain efficiency and focus around time, and that was, I mean, as I said, I think it's a humbling process because it's not there's no, for me at least there's no formula. I never I didn't crack some secret thing Up to the very end. It was difficult and it was a challenge and there were a lot of meltdowns, and I'm not even talking about my children, I'm talking about myself. So I think it's not. I don't have a magic answer about how to do it. And you use the word balance and I think I would just say for me it's never quite a, it's not a balance per se, or that's. Maybe for me it would be misleading to say, oh, the balance of work, work life or motherhood and book project, but I guess it. For me it was learning to. Ok, I'm not balancing, I'm falling over a lot, but I'm getting back up and I'm trying again. And that's just that continual exercise of oh yes, I'm doing it, I'm doing it. Ok, no, but I'm going to get back up and just continuing to kind of move forward and making sure that there were people in my life that were cheerleaders for this project. I think that's the other thing. That's writing a book, and I think there's a lot of creative pursuits like this where you're like, what is the end goal here? Like, is this even going to be a book? Is Will this Ever See the Light of Day? Will readers connect with this? Is this worth it? I'm using quotations, I know it's a podcast, but worth it in the sense of the sacrifices that have been made, not just by myself but by others, to have this happen. So I think that's also just the realities of it. Is this the kind of like try, try again the mentality of it?

yeah, Well, it seems to really be paying off in all of your endeavors and you're doing a fabulous job at whatever you're doing. So kudos to you for the book, this essay. I did highlight a part of it because I thought it was just so beautiful. I'll read it, that's okay, sure, yeah, okay. So you're talking about your children, or just children, I guess? Okay, you said they learn dozens of words in a single day. They leave notes that are novellas on the bedside table. At two they suddenly say things like this rainy window looks like a slice of watermelon and you think the raindrops look exactly like watermelon seeds. How does writing come so easily to them? And that is such a cool way to think about it. It's like they don't have to try, they don't have to research, they don't have to go to school for writing. They have this amazing imagination and it's like it's already in you. It's like you lose it as you get older and you have to rediscover and re-find out how to have that imagination and writing and creativity in a different way of seeing the world. I mean, we think that, but just to read it and I don't know it just made me think, it made me smile, so I love that.

Thank you, yeah, and I think also there's times when it almost feels like these children, which, in my case at least, I struggled to have and were such a kind of gift and a joy, but also at times almost feels like it's like this obstacle to this creative project that you're doing. And it was just a good reminder for me that, even as being a mom sometimes it was getting in the way of time to do this other project there were aspects of being with my children and being a mom that actually were helping me be a better writer, be a better observer, be a better listener, which is so helpful for the interviews that I was doing for the book with artists and other people who either had spent time at Coente Slip or knew the artist that did, or so there were all these little lessons that are, of course, I mean it's sort of a cliche, but it's very true that, yeah, your children can certainly help you see or teach you, and it's true, I mean. So my daughter is now just going into first grade, but she sort of towards the end of writing the book, she was just learning how to read and it was just this incredible thing to suddenly get these little notes from her and to see her kind of first awakening to the world of writing and reading and the joy that that brought her to be able to communicate in that different way, and I think that was just another very kind of simple but perfect lesson for me of what a gift it is to be able to sit down and write, what a gift it is to be able to pick up a book not your own, pick up any book and read it, and so, yeah, that also kind of helps, I think, to just keep everything in perspective. As your, you know everything, it feels like it's slightly falling down around you. Yeah, mmm.

You're amazing. First of all, like I just love listening to you talking. You're just so knowledgeable and I love how you approach Everything. It's really, really refreshing. Thank you so much, kelly. I you. I would ask if you had a singular piece of advice, but I feel like you already kind of when you're talking about balance and you put it all together. You don't have to, but is there any any like singular piece of advice that you would give to any mom's listening to just go after that Dream if they would be a writer and artist or whatever it is, but to still follow that creative passion even when you feel bogged down by diapers.

Yes, I so many diapers. I mean, I think, you know, in addition to making sure you're surrounding yourself by people who are really, you know, supporting you and and, and also, I think, vocalizing your needs or your dreams to people, because not everyone, you know, not everyone's mind reader, and I think sometimes we and I say we like mothers tend to, you know, some sublimate their needs a little bit because we're so used to kind of helping everyone else. So I think it's really important just to communicate, you know, something that you need. But I guess the other thing I would just say is to not get too worried about Like wasted time, in the sense that you know, maybe I think that so much of motherhood and Rachel Cusk and other writers have it, have written about this but is this kind of strange like liminal space of you know endless stroller walks and you know the constant Feeding and changing diapers, and it can make it almost can feel like time is abstract or there is no time, but yet days are just sort of melting into each other and I think when you're wanting to do a project that can sometimes get very nerve-wracking, in that you want to, you know you feel like you're wasting time or this time could be spent doing this other thing, and you've lost this time and I've kind of come to embrace that there, in addition to, of course, that time being Amazing bonding time with your child, even if they're sleeping, or you know they're screaming or whatever it is but it's also you know, there's so many things you can do that actually are, I think, feeding into Whatever creative thing you do want to do. So you know, you could be watching a Children's show with your child and there's something in that show that sparks an idea for you about a project you want to do. Or you could be, you know, finally getting five minutes to yourself and you're feel too tired to work on your own project that you can pick up that novel that you've been meaning to read, and there's something in that novel Maybe it's a word, maybe it's an image, maybe it's, you know, some kind of phrase or piece of advice or inspiration or that that just helps propel you forward. And so I just think that you know inspiration and ideas come from so many different sources, and so I've just kind of come to try to embrace that. That you know, even if you're having a day where it feels like you have no time to yourself and everything is you're doing is not about the creative project you hope to do. You know, allow for the osmosis of the world coming in and helping to, to spark little, unexpected moments of you know, connection or creativity that will lead to, you know, ultimately to your project in another way, because I think we have to, as mothers, you have to think that way, because that is the reality of how time works in a day.

For instance, it has been an honor to meet you and talk to you today. Thank you so much for being on the podcast and just talking to other moms and giving them that inspiration and that just boost of you know, not look what I did, you can do it too. But like, look what we all can do, like the if there's no limit to what moms or women can do in the creative world. You know, ten kids or one kid I mean. Well, I don't know about that. Someone's gonna have to tell me about how ten kids would be. But like, I look forward to that podcast.

Let me know about that episode. But no, I mean thank you so much for for having me on and for also for creating this space for so for women to think about creativity and motherhood in such a productive and helpful way. Just.

A reminder that my second children's book, my day, the pumpkin patch, comes out September 5th. I'm so excited. So if you like fall and you're obsessed with Halloween, like I am, or your kids are, pick it up. I love it and I I hate Lee McAndrews. It's my illustrator. She did a phenomenal job. I can't wait to share it with everyone. I'm so excited. Did I mention that I'm excited? Anyway, thank you so much for listening. It wasn't prudence amazing. She's, she's just incredible. She's amazing. Thank you so much for listening. I'll see you next week. I