Creative Mums & Manly Arts Festival
Interview by Kathy Hunter

Angela van Boxtel bounces into Hum, a café on the marketplace in Manly, with her 13-month-old baby boy, and the owners greet her by name. ‘Cappucino, Angela?’ She’s slight and wiry and has, as my dad would say, a helluva handshake. She wears a denim mini with outrageous boots, and her freckles, wide eyes and equally wide grin makes me think of Pippi Longstocking. So where does this elfin mother of four boys, who looks ten years younger than she actually is, get her energy from?

Angela, as many readers will know, is the founder of ‘Creative Mums an organisation that currently boasts over 500 members from all over Australia. Those members are women with creative urges that need more fuel than sitting at home changing nappies can provide and they’re keen to ‘practice their artistic profession while raising children in a balanced way’. They use Angela’s networking, management, marketing and creative talents to get ideas about their own creative work, support each other’s endeavours, and get together for social, networking and educational events organised by Angela.

This woman is an endlessly energetic ‘enabler’ – Angela is involved in no less than seven events in the Manly Arts Festival this year, and in previous years has produced such large-scale wild events as Illuminati, which, in 2003, transformed Rialto Square outside the Manly Art Galley and Museum with three huge digital video screens and over 100 musicians, singers, dancers, drummers, choristers and rappers. And it all fits in between the nappies and the naps.

Angela was brought up on a farm in the Netherlands, where her strict Catholic family had little time for art. ‘There was a Bible in the house, and about maybe three other books,’ she remembers. But her mother was a force to be reckoned with – as well as all the farm and mothering duties, she put her creative energies into sewing and knitting, opened the first ‘Fair Trade’ shop in the area and insisted that all the local banks and businesses use her Fair Trade coffee – remember, this was twenty years ago, so she was way ahead of the times.

Angela left the farm to study psychology, anthropology and media studies – this last became a passion for her and the basis for much of what she is doing now. The digital technology and film skills she learned enabled her to request and win a government grant to set up programmes for kids aged 7 to early 20s to learn about art on computers. Teaching 7-year-olds about computer animation in the nineties – ahead of the times, just like her mum.

Suddenly then she found herself trying to fit babies into her life and things began to fall apart just a little. She realized she would have to fit her life round her children, not the other way around, so began to work from home. In 1999 she had the germ of the idea that there were lots of other women just like her, needing more in their life, but not wanting to give up their babies to day care.

But in 2000 Angela’s dreams of living in the sun by the sea drove her and her family to pack up and come to Sydney, sight unseen. Once she was settled, she felt again the frustration of not having a support network for her creativity, and she knew other mothers with home businesses were in the same situation. She decided to take the plunge. In 2004, while pregnant with her third child, ‘Creative Mums’ was born, and Angela got straight down to business.

Angela’s a bit of a hippie, but a fully digitised one, with a keen business eye. The range of events she’s involved in at the Manly Arts Festival reflects this: from painting mandalas on pregnant bellies and ‘Yogarama’ (where mums and babies can ‘surrender to connection in a visual projection environment of mandala flowers’), to hosting ‘Women in Focus’ – a double workshop where women can ‘learn about the importance of a good photo for your artist portfolio and press package’, she’s got both the fun and the serious business side of things covered. Angela finds Aussies much easier than Europeans to get on with and work with – ‘it’s more about ‘mates’ here, instead of intellectualising all the time like in Europe. I work much better like this,’ she says.

She feels one of her key strengths is spotting talents people sometimes don’t even know they have and help them to fully realise their creative potential. One such recipient of her skill is Diane Hansen, who met Angela through Art In Motion, yet another one of the tireless Angela’s start-ups. ArtIM is a network of artists who run workshops and art programmes at Bear Cottage, the childrens’ hospice in Manly. Psychologist, author and illustrator Diane was spotted by Angela as having even more to give, and was persuaded to do a ‘positive self-expression’ workshop a the Manly Arts Festival – ‘(ST)ART with a Difference’.

Angela is far from being just a hearts and flowers girl kind of girl, however. In a hard-hitting article in this weeks Daily Telegraph Angela says ‘I really wish more mums had the guts to reclaim motherhood and just stopped whingeing about "having" to work. A lot of families have a choice but they are addicted to things they can't let go of - the big house, their cars, their shopping and private education to name just a few things… Many women don't realise it, but the very simple answer to the question of balance for working mothers is this: be happy with less.’

And for those of us who are prepared to make the leap to being a stay-at-home mum with a business on the side, here’s some patented Angela van Boxtel advice: 

• Find an idea that works for you and, while your babies are little, educate yourself about it – explore ideas and put down foundations for a future time when your children don’t need you so much.

• Don’t feel you have to make an instant career – it’s not going to happen. The key is to work around the ages of your kids, and make time to be there for them without too much effort, because once stress starts to creep in, the family falls apart and so do you.

• Start small and delegate if you don’t know how to do something – pay someone to do your PR or website or whatever is not in your skillset. Don’t be tempted to be a control-freak!

• Specialise – if you’re good at making cushions, don’t start making quilts as well. You’ll spread yourself too thin, the family will suffer and the business will fail.

• Networking can make or break many businesses – Creative Mums is a great way to find other enterprising women who can support you in many ways while your ideas are growing.

• Look after yourself and your family! ‘Go to the beach with your kids,’ says Angela. ‘You will never regret it.’

I bounce out of the café after my meeting with Angela, full of my own ideas. Suddenly everything seems possible. Whatever love/planet/colour/art/business/happiness vibe this extraordinary woman is plugged into, she seems to be able to pass it effortlessly around. So go for it Angela, and may the force, whatever it is, be with you.