Artist in Residence (Katie Jacobs, 2025): USA

Review by Lisa Trivell. Viewed at SBIFF.

This documentary shows the challenges of balancing a career in the arts with motherhood in the time span between 1940-1970. It  made clear in the film that the three women were single parents which means they had no partner to help raise a family.The film shows interviews of the artists in their 90,s as well as their grown children.

This is Story of three women artists Lois Dodd, Eleanor Madrid and Louise Kruger in the 1940s to the year 2010. The film took seven years to produce and edit the 70 years of archival materials and interviews.The film goes back to how the three women met in the East Village of New York City. It tells us how they gave each other emotional moral support to follow their work in the arts.They eventually were able to buy a building on the Lower East Side of Manhattan by paying the landlord directly. They gave up any conventional stereotypes of motherhood for their art and sense of community with other artists. Although they all accomplished a lot professionally their children felt ignored.The documentary followed three women artists their art and a lot of moving over the decades.The edits included interviews of people they knew and the artists grown children. The grown children who were interviewed had some reserve about their childhood. They did express their love and admiration of their mothers but admitted it was a difficult childhood.

As shown in the film Lois Dodd was a painter and educator. Lois painted in nature to capture her surroundings in New York City, Maine and New Jersey. Eleanor Madrid was the founder of the Print Shop established in 1968.The Print Shop still exists today offering, affordable classes and rental spaces for children and adults. Louise Kruger was know for her work in wood and metal as well as woodcuts and drawings. Louise’s work is in museums and galleries and she is highly regarded in the Art world.

The film is a documentary, not highly lit. The content came from alot of sources including family and friends. Some of it was going back in time, but it was  unclear about who we were talking about because they didn’t announce the name on the bottom and there was a lot of going back-and-forth.The film was edited in a choppy amateurish way.It did cover a lot of territory switching back in forth in time.I think that having a narrator throughout the movie would have made it difference with cut aways to different interviews.

I loved the film it was very relatable to me because I am an artist and a mother of two grown children.This film is a celebration of independence, creativity and strength of these three women artists.They opened the door to more women artists being recognized. Hopefully today couples who decide to have a family go into it realizing its a partnership. Men sometimes take turns watching the children.In some cases the women can make more money then the man. Its more of an equal playing field. In summary their shared life, fostered creativity and community, but not without a cost .

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