Parenting
The art of juggling family and creative work can be the biggest creative challenge of all. These posts by working creatives with kids share how they do it and how parenting has changed the way they do their creative work.

Chasing Rights, Missing Flights: Making Abortion Accessible Against All Odds
What it’s like to be a Patient Navigator for abortion services: “It’s post-Roe, 2022. I’m on a trip from Texas to New Mexico, accompanying 15 people seeking abortion, one a minor. The clinic forgets to tell us to buy her mom a ticket, and the two get separated at the airport. Mother sobbing, daughter stone-faced and angry. I’m exhausted.”
Read More
Pyragraph LIVE: John Fugelsang
John Fugelsang is in Albuquerque to perform “Unpresidented: The true story of a comedian trying to raise a toddler while his country was electing one” and we were lucky enough to get him into the Pyragraph LIVE studio (a.k.a. my office) to talk about comedy, politics, religion, and how he’s pulled all those elements and more into his unique creative career.
Read More
Gun Sense Now! Maggie Byers and Emilie De Angelis of Moms Demand Action NM
After last week’s tragedy in Parkland, Florida, I reached out to Maggie Byers and Emilie De Angelis of Moms Demand Action NM to talk about recent developments on the gun control front. Moms Demand Action is a bi-partisan grassroots organization fighting the epidemic of gun violence in the US.
Read More
Dear Little Bobby: Doesn’t Feel Like Puppy Love
People breed puppies in their backyards and then sell them to pet shops for a couple of hundred dollars so that the pet shop can turn around and sell them for twice that much to fools like your boyfriend.
Read More
How Theater Education Can Change the World Or, how it changed mine
Guest Blogger Jeff Andersen: “We work with students in local classrooms for an entire year teaching them how to write and perform their own plays. I see the students make the same connections I did. They realize that they can not only participate in the world around them but also, even better, help to shape it.”
Read More
How Picture Books Make Us Better People
Babar the elephant and Curious George are old friends. They were some of the first people we grew to know. They might not be real people, but they were some of our first ideas of people.
Read More
Dear Little Bobby: ‘Bad Touch Uncle’ Creeps Me Out
If you are getting a “very creepy vibe” off this guy, if other women are saying he makes them “very uncomfortable,” if you are “scared for” your aunt, then what the hell are you waiting for? The Rapture? I would suggest that you immediately intervene.
Read More
Holding My Own Pain: Making ‘Thorn-bed’
Ocotillo medicine is used to move stagnation. Thus “thorn-bed” has a double meaning suggesting pain, while acting as a remedy for ending the phenomena of being stuck, blocked, or otherwise suffering.
Read More
Conceptual Play: Artist Residency in Motherhood
The intention of my self-imposed residency is to reframe motherhood as a valuable site of inspiration rather than an obstacle for making art. As I am in the midst of parenting two young children, I have found this pedagogical shift incredibly empowering.
Read More
Rock Dad I was (and am) a rock musician
Not only did I think rock and roll foolish and immature, but I felt as if somehow I had let my son down by being a wastrel for all of my adult life instead of preparing for proper fatherhood.
Read More
The Wholeness of Things Making art from a place of personal truth and holistic identity
With this recent embrace that my work is in fact inspired from my personal experiences, it allows me to take the whole of my experiences as artist, mother, nature enthusiast and Buddhist and make them all one.
Read More
Motherhood and Artistic Practice: Finding Personal Truth
Drifting back into memories of my little babies wearing them, I pained over whether I could “sacrifice” the clothing for the sake of art. The first cuts were almost paralyzing.
Read More
Self-Employed Happy Hour Podcast: Eph Sharpe We chat about playing the uke, being a creative parent, and his raccoon pendant
Peri interviews Collin Troy, a.k.a. Eph Sharpe, known to hip hop fans for his work with 2bers, but who also has a crap-ton of other creative ventures on his plate, including a new solo music project called Factory on Fire.
Read More
Finding My Edge How my meditation practice has changed since becoming a parent
A Buddhist saying I heard which I hope to hold as my mantra as I navigate this new phase of my life as an artist and parent is, “The perfect place to condition is where you are and the perfect condition is who you are.”
Read More
Dear Little Bobby: Being a Loving, Present, Creative Parent is Hard
I really love my kids and my husband. But I need long stretches of focused time for my work, and lately I feel I can’t get that without guilt, and often crabbiness. Bobby, how can I be present with my family while also doing my creative work?
Read More
It’s a Very Special Summer Because This Mom Can Finally Work
Having both my kids in a summer program for the first time ever is a big reason why I’m riding a wave of productivity and plowing ahead with Pyragraph stuff AND new podcast episodes. Whoo, momentum!
Read More