‘It keeps me grounded’: How 2 S’pore artists embrace motherhood in their careers

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MS Features: Artists in Singapore speak about motherhood

Art has never been seen as a conventional career choice for the majority in Singapore.

But for some, such as 36-year-old Ng Yang Ce and 38-year-old Emma Chong, the creative calling is instinctive and something that they’ve chosen not to ignore.

Even the pressures of motherhood and wanting to be present in their children’s lives have not stopped them from being their true selves.

Instead of dimming their fire, these two female artists have embraced motherhood — even using it as a means to elevate their practice.

Motherhood as motivation

Speaking to MS News, Yang Ce, a Singaporean ceramic artist who has more than 14,000 followers on Instagram, said that even as a girl, she was drawn to painting and the performing arts.

As a young student in junior college and later, the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, she would dabble in dancing and ceramics.

It was only since becoming a mother that she started to take her ceramic career more seriously.

“The point that I really stopped treating this work as exploration was after I had my son,” said Yang Ce, who now runs a pottery studio of her own.

From fulfilling hundreds of orders to guiding her small community of studio users, Yang Ce spends more than six hours a day in the studio — and longer when she’s in the flow.

While she works hard to put food on the table and to fulfil her own creative needs, she never forgets her other priority: a nine-year-old son at home.

No matter how many cups she has to make or how many students she has to teach, Yang Ce makes it a point to spend evenings together with her child.

And having him in her life has also transformed the way she creates.

Image courtesy of Yang Ce

“Motherhood has certainly shaped my art and creation,” said Yang Ce.

“I was not so grounded before becoming a mother; I’m now more precise and sure about the way I work.”

She does all this to make sure she can spend as much time as possible with her family.

I tell myself that I cannot take so much time, because there’s someone important at home.

Artist reaches for fine art degree after giving birth

For another female artist in Singapore, becoming a mother did not stop her from going back to school — even as an older student in her 30s.

“Returning to complete my fine art degree at 35 was quite an insane decision, especially when my child had just turned three,” said Emma, who runs Studio Luna as a freelance illustrator and art teacher.

Photo by Leonard Ching

Being a student again was no walk in the park, as she juggled submissions at school, work deadlines, and showing up for her son.

While sometimes she could read him a story before bed and send him to school, there have been moments when she had to make do with a simple prayer before she left home.

“I try not to overthink when I can’t do more, though I still struggle with this,” said Emma to MS News.

Mom guilt feels like a permanent condition.

It is through art that she processes these difficult emotions as she navigates the seasons of her life.

A sketch of Emma and her child. Image courtesy of Emma Chong.

Motherhood as creative inspiration

Emma shared that she began making drawings of her child in 2023, spending hours poring over photographs of them both together.

Three years on, she would create “The Embodied Abecedarium: a mothering body in translation” — a body of work informed by her own experience of womanhood, which became more pronounced since becoming a mother.

“Big B, Little B, what begins with B?” from The Embodied Abecedarium: a mothering body in translation. Photo by Wong Jing Wei.

When asked what she hopes people can take away from her most recent series, Emma said:

I am a mother, my body is mine.

“My bodily awareness intensified through pregnancy and childbirth,” she told MS News, adding that her work is more precisely about the mothering body.

“While I attempt to detach motherhood as an experience from how my body is defined, it remains an irreversible condition.”

Source: emma-chong.art

For Emma, returning to art school — especially as a mother — is something to be proud of.

While her freelance work at Studio Luna kept food on the table, her creative projects in school kept her fulfilled.

“I achieved my academic goals, receiving full scholarships from my second year onwards,” said Emma, who is now set to graduate from LASALLE College of the Arts (Goldsmiths, University of London).

“I am simply glad that I pushed through.”

Art as a bridge between mother and child

Yang Ce and Emma are proof that it’s worth it to stay true to who you are. To feed what nourishes your soul, even if it seems impossible or impractical.

They welcomed becoming mothers as a part of their creative journey with grace, and now they are observing the payoffs in terms of their relationship with their growing children.

“Art has always been a way for me to process my thoughts, but it also plays a practical role in how I connect with my child,” said Emma, who often draws and crafts with her son.

“I’ve noticed that my child develops confidence in his own creative expressions as well.”

And for Yang Ce, art has only refined her relationship with her son.