That Mother-Daughter Connection

My daughter and I met together for the first time in too many months yesterday for a 5-day visit at our hometown of San Francisco. She no longer lives here, and I am here only part-time, so it is interesting to meet up, call this home, and yet establish a new version of home at this exciting and changing time in both of our lives.

I am fortunate to have a very close relationship with Susannah (Zana to most, Sus to me) and this has been the case for all of her life. Now that we are both independent adults, the nuances to this close relationship continue to evolve, built on the strength we have established over the past 21 years. A wise friend once advised that I develop a relationship of trust with my kids long before they hit the teenage years, as that foundation needed to be in place before the rockiness of adolescence shook things up. That was one of the most valuable pieces of childrearing advice I ever received, and I believe it is such an important component of the relationship that Susannah and I have today.

I never had the chance to know my own mother once I reached adulthood, and I doubt that even if I had we would have ever achieved a relationship like Susannah and I have. At the core is honesty and truth, belief in each other and allowing each other to be our true selves with one another, and trust in our bond and our independence. Over the last year when I have leaned on Susannah for support and friendship at a time when she has been establishing her life in NYC, she's been there, wise beyond her years. And over this same year when she has leaned on me for different types of advice and support, I've been able to be there for her, too.

At dinner last night, Susannah's best friend told me that I was her role model, that if she ever had kids she would want to take lessons from me in hope of ending up with a child like mine. I say, take lessons from both of us. It goes both ways!

A Spectator to Her Life

I must admit it: I have raised a full-blown fashionista. At 21, my daughter, Zana Bayne http://zanabayne.com/collection/ is at the beginning of her career in the world of fashion, and it is an absolute trip and pleasure to be a spectator to her life.

From the time she was quite young, Susannah (as I still call her) had a distinct sense of style, one which would often make me shudder and joke that she had to promise never to tell anyone that her mommy worked in fashion. Yet this young child could walk into a store and instantly point out the poor color choices, the bad design, and offer up ways to improve styles. When I used to bring her in to work with me, people would at first begrudgingly let the boss' daughter hang out, and rapidly figure out that she could be quite an asset in the design room or with catalog spreads, asking for her to return to help out as frequently as possible.

I never wanted Susannah to enter the same business as I, as she had such strong artistic talent and was so smart that I wanted her to soar higher than I ever had or could. And yet, she is a natural in the business. With her eponymous accessories business, her blog http://garbagedress.com, her day-job, and her extraordinary networking skills, this young woman is blazing a path on her own. Now that her designs are being used in international magazines and her profile has been written up in numerous fashion blogs, I am beginning to get used to being referred to as "Zana's mom" - a label I wear proudly.

Talking 'bout My Generation

Wow! I just left two days at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), where I had been invited to participate in a panel speaking about "Making Meaning in the Marketplace" sponsored by the American Craft Council. While I often speak in front of large groups of people, it has been a long time since I have been in an academic setting, to say nothing of an art-academic setting, where there is a vocabulary all its own.

I was once an art student at the California College of Arts (and Crafts, as it was then known), and once an avid participant in deep heady conversations. The conversations then (in the 1970's) were often about art vs craft, and how we (mostly) women students could justify working in a medium (textiles) so strongly identified with women's handicrafts, yet consider ourselves serious artists. And how could we be taken seriously as artists by the previous generation when we were rebelling against them so strongly. And how to get a gallery to show our work. My, how things have changed - and not!
There were two conversations with students in particular that really struck me. The first had to do with the concern about having a unique work vs selling out, being unique and being knocked off. In this globalized world into which they are graduating, the Internet and mobile computing has changed everything. Students don't know whether to hide their work or show it, don't know if millions will view their work or no one. We used to be concerned about a few hundred, maybe thousands seeing our work. Now, in the age of American Idol and Yelp, everything is up for grabs to be voted on by our fellow citizens. Such a different pressure...

But the final conversation of the day really struck me. A young woman asked me, essentially asked my generation, to take her seriously - to take the fact that she and her generation approach things so differently than my generation did. Specifically, she talked about the fact that the 20 year olds of today often have multiple interests, and have been comfortable pursuing them, thus their resumes post-college may include a mixture of talents and experiences. She has found that that is often being considered "unfocused" or "inexperienced" by employers of my generation. We spoke of the irony that the mature adults of today, those who fought so hard against the constraints of the '50's and '60's, were now imposing their '80's and '90's-based work ethics on the new workforce of the '10's.

This caused me to reflect on my daughter, a young woman who is perfectly comfortable identifying as a designer/artist/photographer/art director/blogger. www.garbagedress.com She is interested in all these things, damn good at all of them, and wants no one to box her in to one category. As her mom, I know that boxing her in would be the dumbest thing for any employer to do, that this would never take advantage of all that she has to offer. So then I thought about some of the people who work for and with me now: the finance guy who is also a painter, the marketing manager who owns a roller derby team, the merchant who is also an interior designer. Their whole life perspective walks into every meeting we have, but do I really value that? I sure hope so. As far as the finance guy goes, I know that the fact that he was a painter meant a lot to me in hiring him in the first place, but little did I know that he would write a monthly Controller's report that is actually interesting to read!

Really, in the end, is my quest to live as a successful businesswoman, a trusted friend, a desired lover and a style arbiter so very different?