ARTDESK: So many artists juggle family and work commitments. How do you balance your family and attend a residency across the country?
MK DESPRES: I have a super-supportive partner and friends who all encouraged me to apply. A true parenting partnership also means that nothing falls apart while one of us is gone.
I don’t think many men who are working parents get asked this question. The arts are already so underappreciated. It’s really important for artists and writers, especially those who are not men, to value our own work and the time needed to make it. When our kids see us making this commitment, that’s also a big power of example for them.
AD: What do you plan to do with your time in Green Mountain Falls?
MD: My art and writing are greatly informed by place, so I plan to spend lots of time hiking and exploring the Pikes Peak landscape and beyond. My work plan is to revise a novel meant for readers that are eight to twelve years old in verse, write some new poems informed by this place and time, to follow any ideas I find into picture-book manuscripts, and to play more with illustration.
As a visual artist, I work mostly with mixed media, both two- and three-dimensional. I’m playing with illustration lately, using cut paper and watercolor crayons and pen and ink, and seeing where that takes me.
AD: In addition to your art practice, you are an elementary educator and a writer. What is your new book about?
MD: There’s That Sun Again was born of the idea that a single day of a single child’s life can have so many beginnings, middles, and ends. When you’re a kid, those ups and downs and in-betweens are all so enormous. It’s also about the ways in which our stories intersect and we find our people. It’s illustrated by the immensely talented Julie Benbassat.
During the end of my residency at Green Box, the first two books in my board series will come out. The First Friends series, illustrated by Aya Watanabe, introduces early learning concepts—two are about shapes and numbers—through a group of kids and teachers at day care.
In my experience, it’s hard to find books about day care that aren’t centered on parents feeling guilty or kids feeling nervous. These books are about kids having fun and making a mess and learning together all while at day care. I wished I’d had books like these when my kids were in day care, so I wrote them.
Mk Smith Despres lives in Western Massachusetts. They are the final 2024 artist-in-residence at Green Box Arts.
greenboxarts.org · mksmithdespres.com