“I” versus “We”
Kristin Marting
Interviewed on August 29th 2022
by Anabella Lenzu
Anabella: Kristin,Thank you so much for making time to talk with me. So, how do you do it, how do you deal with motherhood, and be an artist, and find time to create and direct this amazing place: HERE Arts Center? What is your secret?
Kristin: Well I feel a little distanced from it now, with having a grown son of 23, but I feel like I was lucky that I was the head of my organization so I could create the flexibility that I needed to make it work on my terms. I definitely think there were trade-offs that I didn't know were going to be there at the beginning. I love being a parent way more than I ever thought I would, but it was also way more work than I ever thought it would be in so many unexpected ways.
When Griffin was first born, I made choices. I had time off, of course, and then I worked six hour days so I could be with him in the morning and then leave for work around lunchtime but then be back in time for dinner and bedtime. After he went to bed I would work more at my computer and sometimes I would go back to the theater to see shows or whatever I needed to do. So I organized a very rigid schedule that I could rely on so I could leave for the six hours. I was gone for seven hours cause I had to get there and get back, but it was a way that worked. Griffin’s father was a professor, so he had flexibility in his schedule, and he was able to do afternoon pick-ups. We had a babysitter 18 hours a week at most, which was essential but hard, because we didn’t have enough money. We were able to flexibly adjust our schedules, so that we could have as much time with Griffin as possible but then also do our jobs and earn a living, and not spend too much on childcare. Nonetheless we went into debt from those first five years of his life because of how much it cost. The child care cost was beyond our income, so we had to make up for that in the later years, and of course at that time there was no free nursery school, so we had pay for that from age 2 to 4, butby the time Griffin was five, we were able to get him into a public kindergarten. We were also lucky to be a part of a parent cooperative for oreschool in the West Village so it was less expensive
Anabella: Please, tell me more about it.
Kristin: It’s West Village Cooperative or West Village Nursery School I think, which at that time was about $7500 a year, because the parents contributed labor . There was also a nursery on Saint Marks place that we tried for one year, and then we were at University Plaza nursery school for two years, and we volunteered at both nursery schools to help, because we thought it was important to play that role.
Anabella: Yes, if you have any community it helps so much. When you're so busy, you have to try to participate in a community. What other resources did you have?
Kristin: I had a couple of other friends who luckily had kids around the same time. One was a dear friend who fostered a baby, and happened to get that baby in March. Another good friend had her son in April, and then I had Griffin in May, and then I had another very close friend in August and another one in November, so we did play groups together. My mom helped a bit, she was only a few blocks away, but she didn't do that much because she was still a full-time professional, so it wasn't like a retired mom helping out the way a lot of folks I know have had. She might take him like one day a week or something, so we could go on a date, like that kind of thing. Yeah so I mean, I think that I didn't feel alone as a parent. I live in a neighborhood which has playgrounds, and the elementary school right in our neighborhood, also with a playground. Sometimes we would work it out that a couple of moms or dads would watch multiple kids to free things up a bit, and that made a real space for community.
Anabella: And how do you juggle your creative life, and make time to create?
Kristin: I definitely feel there were big trade-offs and I wasn't conscious of them at the time, but at the time that I had Griffin, I was getting a lot of directing offers to direct outside of HERE, and I just didn't have the bandwidth to direct HERE and direct elsewhere, so I started saying no. I didn't have an agent, because I decided that I wasn't working freelance enough to have an agent, and I couldn't take out of town directing gigs, so I just feel like I traded the profile of my directing career for being Griffin's mother, and for being the artistic director of HERE. I wasn't consciously doing that, but that's what ended up happening. So I still am directing, and I love directing, and it's the great passion of my creative work, but with what my responsibilities were at HERE, I just didn't have the bandwidth to do more than I was doing. That changed a bit as he got older. At that time I was Executive Director of HERE, I was not just the Artistic Director and so it was later when Griffin was older that I brought in Kim Whitener as our Producing Director and my partner. Then my title and responsibilities shifted and I was able to start doing more outside gigs, but before that, there just really wasn't a possibility. Because of motherhood, I didn't take out of town gigs, because I didn't want to be away from Griffin. I waited a long time before I started doing out of town gigs again.
Anabella: In this period did you bring Griffin to HERE Art Center, or to the shows you were directing, or did you keep things separate? Myself, I brought my kids along to everything because I didn't usually have a choice.
Kristin: Yes, some people have babies or toddlers that they can bring to rehearsal and they can still concentrate, that was not Griffin! I was never able to bring him into my workplace the way a lot of people do it, until he was older. When he was older he could come, he could read a book he could occupy himself, but when he was little there's no way that I could bring him into rehearsal. It wasn't pressure from anyone else, it was simply the particular child I had. He could be hyper-focused and do his own thing, but he also could be: I wanna do this, now I wanna do this, you know he was jumping from thing to thing.
Anabella: How would you define what it is to be a good mother?
Kristin: I think it's availability, I think it's reliability… and I think those two things may not sound substantial, but I actually think they're extremely substantial to a child's sense of confidence, security and their ability to function as an independent person, by knowing that you're there and you'll listen and that you're offering them consistent parameters. It gives the child the confidence and resilience that they need to function in the world. Of course I think that love and connection and bedtime reading and cooking good food and teaching and sharing and all of those things are really important, but I think there's a lot of people who go around in the world with a lot of baggage that they carry, because of the uncertainty of their upbringing. My son lived in the same place for his whole life until he went to college, and he had a mother and a father and a grandmother that were there for him, that he knew loved him unconditionally. He stayed in every school that he was supposed to from kindergarten to fifth grade, then from 6 to 8 another school, 9 to 12 to another school. There are a lot of things that he had that gave him a sense of love and stability from his base. Of course he still had struggles he had to go through, and he's a very particular personality and a particular kid, but I think that we gave him a sense of security that I think a lot of kids aren’t able to have, that they take that into life’s relationships, their workplace, their sexual relationships, personal relationships, in their inner creative space, and so on. I think we gave him a grounding that helps serve him today and gives some a sense of confidence, a foundation from which to function. I'm really interested to see what we have to do to help kids these days deal with the idea that the world is a dangerous place. They have to wrestle with a whole different set of contentions that we never had to deal with.
Anabella: Absolutely - we had Fire drills, they have Lockdown drills to prepare for someone coming in with a gun and killing everyone! But how did you manage the uncertainty of directing an organization, and also your career. I feel it's about responsibility and also about discipline.
Kristin: This morning I was with a friend of mine who is also a mom, and she’s also an artistic director. And one of the things that we were talking about is the caretaking that is being an artistic director, and the relationship between that and motherhood. You're thinking through what might not be anticipated yet, this is not to infantilize artists at all, but as a creative producer your job is to think about things that the artist isn’t focused on, and to think ahead about the challenges that may be coming, and to try to figure out how to avoid those derailing a creative process. There's this similar thing with being a parent, that you're bringing your experience to bear, and you're thinking about the things that that your child might run into, and your caretaking for them. The thing that we often don't do as women and as women leaders, we don’t take care of ourselves the same way as we caretake for everyone around us. And so that's something that we have to better at, at least for me. I think Covid has actually been helpful for me to think about what my needs are in a specific circumstance.
Anabella: Now that Griffin is older, you have more time to take care of yourself, to find more balance internally.
Kristin: I do, but I feel like that also came from my specific situation. I got divorced only a short time before Covid, so I had this time on my own which I think was invaluable for me as a human, and so I have some gratitude to Covid for that specific opportunity (not for anything else, of course), because I removed an enormous amount of stress from my life. In terms of trying to keep the 16 people that work at HERE paid, and having the health insurance, I felt this responsibility without being able to be in the theater, COVID was incredibly stressful, but I do feel like it gave me time for self examination and self-care that I'm carrying forward, and I'm incredibly grateful for that.
Anabella: And what did you find out about yourself during the pandemic?
Kristin: I learned to take time for myself. I hike on a regular basis, I go to the beach on a regular basis, I’m staying in touch with the outdoors. I need that, and it can fuel me. The Japanese call walking in the woods “forest bathing” and I just really love that, and and think of it as revitalizing, filling your spirit bag, so that you can bring energy back to what you do.
Anabella: You’re trying to nurture everybody, but you have to find the things that nurture you, keep you strong enough to keep giving back.
Kristin: Friendship. I have so many close friends who I value so deeply and some of them are for many many years, and some more recently in the last five years, but I'm deeply grateful for them. I'm also just really grateful for my creative collaborators, the depth of those relationships, and how much that feeds another part of my spirit and the artistic work that I create and produce. The resident artists I work with at HERE and their projects, are really beautiful and inspring. I've been doing this a long time and planning my departure in the next two years. I am moving on to a new phase of my life -not retiring- just leaving HERE. But I'm excited for the next phase and to see where that takes me, and I don't know that I would've gotten there without that time I took during Covid, but I think it’s appropriate for me to leave, and for a different leadership to carry the vision of HERE forward, and I'm excited for that.
Anabella: Wow, it's kind of like letting your kids go to college and start their life. It’s a big decision. Are you starting to search for someone for this position?
Kristin: No not yet, because I have another two years or so. I will probably start next summer.
Anabella: How would you define what it is to be a good artist?
Kristin: I think it's the strength and passion of your vision, and finding a way to make that clear and staying steadfast with it, trusting where that vision will take you. I also think we're in the performing arts, which is highly collaborative. It is not just one person's world. It is how you interact with the other artists around you, and how you learn from the generosity of their contributions, and how that adapts and involves the vision that you have. There's a beautiful thing that Jim Nicholai said about “I” versus “We.” He was talking about it in the context of being an Artistic Director, but I think you could also talk about it in terms of being a director of a project. There is an “I” part, but if there isn't the “We” part, you won't get there and if there's only a “We” part and not an “I” part you won't get there, so there’s a way that you have to balance those two things and let them be in conversation with each other, to get you to the really strong work. It is the best that everyone can do, and make together.
Anabella: Beautiful, it is true. And what is your advice for young artists and mothers?
Kristin: I think it's just being sure that you have clarity about who you're in partnership with. I think it's very hard to raise a child alone, and I have the utmost respect for any person who can do it, but I think that you would need to have some partners, or money, or both. There are friends that you can do this work with. I do think it's like the old adage of “it takes a village.” I think that's really true, that you need a flexible workplace that is respectful of your parenting needs and can work flexibly with you and hopefully provide some childcare support, which is what we do at HERE.
We have a self care fund, which people can use for childcare, elder care, or even if they need to take cabs home because they don't feel safe on the subway, or they need to get massages to do their work. They can use the self-care fund, and we pay it weekly to all artists that we’re working with.
Kristin Marting (she/her) is HERE’s Founding Artistic Director and a director of hybrid work based in NYC. As Artistic Director, she cultivates artists and programs all events for two performance spaces for an annual audience of 30,000. She co-created and co-curates HARP, HERE’s Artist Residency Program. She has constructed 30 works for the stage (9 original hybrid works, 7 opera-theatre and music-theatre works, 9 adaptations of novels & short stories and 5 classic plays), most recently Only You Will Recognize the Signal with Kamala Sankaram and Rob Handel. Other recent projects include Silent Voices at BAM, IDIOT with Robert Lyons; Bombay Rickey, an opera cabaret also in Prototype; Trade Practices, an immersive theatrical experience where the audience determines value. She also directed Sounding and Dead Tech (collaborative works adapted from Ibsen), both of which received prestigious MAP Fund awards. She was recently named a nytheatre.com Person of the Decade for outstanding contribution, a Leader to Watch by Art Table and honored with a BAX10 Award. Kristin is also co-director of PROTOTYPE: opera theatre now, an annual festival of contemporary opera-theatre and music theatre works, which she co-founded with Beth Morrison and Kim Whitener. Visit Kristin’s website here.
ANABELLA LENZU: Originally from Argentina, Anabella Lenzu is a dancer, choreographer, scholar & educator with over 30 years of experience working in Argentina, Chile, Italy, and the USA. Lenzu directs her own company, Anabella Lenzu/DanceDrama (ALDD), which since 2006 has presented 400 performances, created 15 choreographic works, and performed at 100 venues, presenting thought-provoking and historically conscious dance-theater in NYC. As a choreographer, she has been commissioned all over the world for opera, TV programs, theatre productions, and by many dance companies. She has produced and directed several award-winning short dance films and screened her work in over 200 festivals both nationally and internationally.