{"id":22698,"date":"2026-05-11T11:11:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T15:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.andreamaicreative.com\/archive\/?p=22698"},"modified":"2026-04-25T15:49:04","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T19:49:04","slug":"for-fellow-artists-with-unsupportive-parents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.andreamaicreative.com\/archive\/for-fellow-artists-with-unsupportive-parents\/","title":{"rendered":"MOVIE REVIEW: MRS. LOWRY & SON"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When the People We Love Can’t Appreciate Our Art<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I recently came across a movie called Mrs Lowry & Son<\/a><\/em>, and at first, I wasn’t sure I was interested. But something pulled me in, and by the end, I felt deeply moved\u2014and heartbroken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The film tells a story based on the real-life painter L.S. Lowry, the artist of industrial Manchester’s “matchstick men,” and his relationship with his aging mother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She lies bedridden in their small house, sharp-tongued and disappointed with her life. He\u2014already a middle-aged man, though still treated like a disappointing child\u2014cares for her devotedly while painting in secret.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There’s something especially poignant about this: a grown man with his own vision, his own inner world, still seeking the approval of a mother who will not give it, still tied to her bedside by duty and love and the enduring hope that maybe, finally, she’ll see him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Those horrible things,” she calls his paintings. She dismisses his vision of the smoky factories and crowded streets, blind to the beauty he sees. Throughout the film, Lowry brings his work to her like a child offering a gift, hoping somehow this time she’ll understand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She never does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Want of Parental Approval<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What struck me most was how specific and universal this dynamic feels. Lowry isn’t seeking fame or fortune. He wants something more fundamental: to be seen by the person who matters most. He wants his mother to look at his work and, through it, finally see him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So many artists know this feeling. The writer whose parent asks, “But when will you get a real job?” The musician whose family sits politely through performances but never truly listens. The painter whose work is unenthusiastically cited as “interesting.”
It’s not about the art. It’s about love. When someone rejects what we create, it feels like they’re rejecting the deepest part of who we are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Parents Who Can’t See<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parents with low emotional intelligence often struggle to see their children as separate beings with their own inner lives, desires, and visions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

This is particularly true of mothers who have sacrificed extensively\u2014their careers, their freedom, their dreams\u2014for their children. Having invested everything, they come to view their children not as independent souls but as extensions of themselves, living proof that their sacrifices meant something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The child’s success becomes their success; the child’s failure, their failure. And because they lacked control in their own lives\u2014trapped in circumstances they couldn’t escape\u2014they cling desperately to controlling their child’s path.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They fear not the child’s unhappiness, but how the world will perceive them through their child. A child who paints “horrible” industrial scenes instead of respectable landscapes? A child who pursues an unstable artistic life instead of a proper career? This reflects badly on them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So they demand conformity to societal values and norms, not because it serves the child, but because it protects the parent’s image.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lowry’s mother couldn’t celebrate his unique vision because she was too busy mourning that her son wasn’t the conventional success she needed him to be to validate her own existence. The tragedy is that she likely never realized she was asking him to disown the very thing that made him extraordinary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cruel Moment<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There’s a scene that cuts to the bone. A neighbor admires one of Lowry’s paintings, and suddenly\u2014finally\u2014his mother approves. Not because she sees what her son saw. But because someone else validated it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This moment reveals everything. She could see value in his work all along. She simply chose not to, because his opinion meant nothing to her. The approval of a stranger mattered more than her son’s entire inner world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later, when someone offers to buy a painting\u2014real recognition, finally\u2014she becomes upset. The opportunity threatens her control. If he becomes a success, he won’t be hers anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then comes the worst moment: she tells him to burn all his paintings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Letter<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There’s another moment in the film that haunts me. Lowry receives an invitation to London\u2014a chance to exhibit his work, to step into the art world, to finally be seen. It’s the kind of opportunity that could have launched his career decades earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His mother dismisses it. Of course she does. London is far, and she needs him, and what would people think? So he stays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But he doesn’t throw the letter away. He keeps it. Throughout the film, we see him return to it, unfold it, read it again. It becomes a secret source of courage, a physical proof that someone out there believed in him, even if the person in that room never would.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watching it, I found myself whispering at the screen: Go. Just go. She’ll never be happy, but you could be. I wished so badly that he had ignored her and gone to London anyway. That he had chosen himself, just once.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But he couldn’t. The chains of duty and hope and love were too strong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wasn’t until after his mother’s death in 1939 that Lowry’s career finally began to take off. Freed from the room, from the weight of her disapproval, from the daily erosion of his spirit\u2014he could finally become the artist he’d always been. The world caught up. But he lost decades waiting for an approval that never came.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quiet Rebellion<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What moves me most about Lowry is what he did next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He kept on painting. He held onto his vision even while desperately seeking approval that never came. He painted those industrial streets and matchstick figures not because she approved\u2014but ultimately, in spite of her disapproval.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s what makes a true artist. Not early success. Not parental blessing. The quiet, stubborn refusal to stop creating, even when the person whose opinion matters most says it’s worthless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Somewhere along the way, he had to let go of needing her approval. The work itself had to be enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Double Life of an Artist<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a way, artists whose families don’t support their art have to learn to live a double life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the surface, you’re the dutiful son, the reliable daughter, the person who shows up, who has a “sensible” job, who doesn’t make waves. You exist in the role they’ve assigned you. But underneath, in the hours stolen before dawn or late at night, in the studio they never visit, in the notebook they never open\u2014that’s where your real life lives. That’s where you’re actually yourself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lowry lived this perfectly. By day, he was a rent collector. A mundane man, easily dismissed. His mother saw that version of him and found him wanting. But the real Lowry was the one who came home and painted those crowded, lonely streets. The real Lowry existed in a world she could never enter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The double life is exhausting, but it’s also a kind of protection. It protects your art from the constant erosion of their dismissal. But it also forces you to build a relationship with your work that’s entirely your own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There’s no parental applause to prop you up, no family validation to cushion the falls. It’s just you and the work, naked and honest. You have to find reasons to keep going that come from inside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That builds something unshakable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Final Proof<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here’s what strikes me about Lowry’s story: later in life, after his mother had died, he was offered numerous honours\u2014a knighthood, an Order of Merit, freedom of the city of London. He refused them all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why? Because she was gone. The only person whose approval he’d ever truly wanted couldn’t see it. He had spent his whole life painting for an audience of one, and that audience was gone. So what was the point?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is both heartbreaking and, in a strange way, the ultimate testament to his integrity as an artist. He wasn’t painting for the honours. He wasn’t painting for posterity or millions of pounds. He painted for her, and when she could never see him, he painted anyway because he had to. The recognition that came after meant nothing compared to the one recognition that never came. He is recorded as the artist with the most honors refused.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, his paintings sell for millions. They hang in galleries worldwide. The world caught up to his vision. But he always knew what really mattered, and it wasn’t the money or the fame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My Lowry Moment<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I thought about Lowry recently because I experienced something small but meaningful: I sold the first copy of my novel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don’t show my work to my parents, and I don’t ask friends to buy my work. I want my work to mean something for the people who seek it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So someone out in the world, with no obligation to me, looked at what I made and said, “I want this.” A moment of connection. My art reached across the void and touched someone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That feeling\u2014someone finally appreciating what you’ve made\u2014is something Lowry experienced in few glimpses before he became famous. The neighbor who admired his painting. The buyer who wanted to purchase one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Small validations that must have whispered: I see you. You’re not alone. Your vision means something to someone else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My Message to Artists<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I stopped caring what my parents think of my work a long time ago. I make art for my own satisfaction. That was the necessary liberation\u2014learning that the work itself has to sustain you, because approval may never come from the people you most wanted it from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But here’s what I also learned: when appreciation does come, from someone who owes you nothing, it matters. Not as validation of your worth\u2014you have to already know that\u2014but as connection. As proof that you’re not alone in how you see the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keep going. Keep building your body of work. Paint the next painting, write the next page, compose the next song. Don’t stop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because here’s something I’ve come to understand: you will have a different perspective on your work one day. What feels invisible now may reveal its worth later\u2014to you, if not to others. And art accrues value over time\u2014not just monetary value, but historical value.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What isn’t appreciated in its own moment often becomes treasured later, not only for its aesthetic merit but for what it represents. A body of work, sustained across years and decades, becomes something larger than any single piece. It becomes a record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Think about what Lowry left behind. Those paintings of industrial Manchester\u2014the matchstick figures, the smoky skies, the crowded streets\u2014they’re not just paintings. They’re a document of a world that no longer exists. They captured something ordinary that became extraordinary simply because someone had the vision to see it and the stubbornness to keep painting it, year after year, while the world looked away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s the gift of the artist who keeps going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You’re not just creating individual works. You’re building a testament. You’re saying: This mattered to me. This vision was worth holding. This world was worth recording in this moment in time. And decades later, when the moment has passed and the streets have changed and the smokestacks have fallen, people will look at what you left behind and understand something they couldn’t have understood any other way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lowry didn’t know, painting in that tiny room while his mother called his work “horrible,” that his paintings would one day hang in galleries and sell for millions. But he also didn’t know\u2014couldn’t know\u2014that he was preserving a piece of history. Those drab industrial streets she hated? They’re gone now. But we still have his vision of them. We still have what he saw.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s the thing about a body of work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A single painting can be dismissed. A single novel can be ignored. But a lifetime of creation, sustained against indifference and dismissal and the weight of those who should have believed but didn’t\u2014that becomes undeniable. Not because it’s suddenly “good enough” by someone else’s standards. But because it represents something rare: a human being who refused to stop seeing in their own way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your art may not find its audience today. It may not find its audience for decades. But every piece you add to the collection, every page you write, every image you create\u2014you’re building something that will outlast you. You’re leaving a record that you were here, and this is what you saw, and you would not let it go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lowry kept painting for decades with almost no recognition. He kept faith with his own vision while the person closest to him called it worthless. And eventually, the world caught up. But even if it hadn’t\u2014even if those paintings never sold for millions\u2014they would still exist. His vision would still be worth having. The record would still matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because the work itself is the thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not the approval. Not the sales. Not the honours that came too late to matter to the only person he wanted them from. The work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the work remains.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the People We Love Can’t Appreciate Our Art I recently came across a movie called Mrs Lowry & Son, and at first, I wasn’t sure I was interested. But something pulled me in, and by the end, I felt deeply moved\u2014and heartbroken. The film tells a story based on the real-life painter L.S. Lowry, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,81,66,80],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-movies","category-personal-development","category-relationships"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5937,"url":"https:\/\/www.andreamaicreative.com\/archive\/the-lovers-card-new-works-by-andrea-mai\/","url_meta":{"origin":22698,"position":0},"title":"THE LOVERS CARD – NEW WORKS BY ANDREA MAI","author":"Andrea Mai","date":"May 15, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"One of my initial methods of communication with Prince was with oracle cards. Later I learned the Major Arcana tarot cards. I enjoy the complexity\u00a0and the flexibility that the traditional tarot offers. So many different meanings can be conveyed in these\u00a0cards. I don't necessarily use it in keeping with the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art Life"","block_context":{"text":"Art Life","link":"https:\/\/www.andreamaicreative.com\/archive\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andreamaicreative.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/AndreaMai_PrinceTarot-3750.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andreamaicreative.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/AndreaMai_PrinceTarot-3750.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andreamaicreative.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/AndreaMai_PrinceTarot-3750.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andreamaicreative.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/AndreaMai_PrinceTarot-3750.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5508,"url":"https:\/\/www.andreamaicreative.com\/archive\/where-is-the-real-art-prince-warned-us-of-this-over-a-decade-ago\/","url_meta":{"origin":22698,"position":1},"title":"WHERE IS THE REAL ART? PRINCE WARNED US OF THIS OVER A DECADE AGO","author":"Andrea Mai","date":"January 1, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"I've talked about art and culture being in a state of spiritual warfare before. But today I want to address it from a social engineering point of view. Art, music and film\u00a0used to be a way for people to talk to each other about social issues. It used to meaning\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art Life"","block_context":{"text":"Art Life","link":"https:\/\/www.andreamaicreative.com\/archive\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5990,"url":"https:\/\/www.andreamaicreative.com\/archive\/love-from-the-other-side-_new-works-by-andrea-mai\/","url_meta":{"origin":22698,"position":2},"title":"LOVE FROM THE OTHER SIDE – NEW WORKS BY ANDREA MAI","author":"Andrea Mai","date":"May 28, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"I never thought that I would be making art where I was at the centre of it. I was always a very shy person, who kept to herself. I don't like to draw unnecessary attention to myself. \u00a0I had always preferred to be the one behind the camera. Some time\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art Life"","block_context":{"text":"Art Life","link":"https:\/\/www.andreamaicreative.com\/archive\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andreamaicreative.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/AndreaMai_PrinceFlower-7402.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andreamaicreative.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/AndreaMai_PrinceFlower-7402.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andreamaicreative.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/AndreaMai_PrinceFlower-7402.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andreamaicreative.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/AndreaMai_PrinceFlower-7402.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5102,"url":"https:\/\/www.andreamaicreative.com\/archive\/the-illusion-of-life-prince-comeback-song-interpretation\/","url_meta":{"origin":22698,"position":3},"title":"THE ILLUSION OF LIFE – PRINCE “COMEBACK” SONG INTERPRETATION","author":"Andrea Mai","date":"November 6, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Whenever I feel sad because\u00a0I miss Prince, he always makes his presence known to me, saying \"Hey, I'm here. I'm always here. Don't cry.\" We live in a grand illusion believing that death means gone forever. It was soon\u00a0after the news of Prince's passing, I found myself feeling\u00a0so confused. The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Prince"","block_context":{"text":"Prince","link":"https:\/\/www.andreamaicreative.com\/archive\/category\/prince\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5078,"url":"https:\/\/www.andreamaicreative.com\/archive\/princes-spiritual-message-in-under-the-cherry-moon-twin-flame-perspective\/","url_meta":{"origin":22698,"position":4},"title":"PRINCE’S SPIRITUAL MESSAGE IN UNDER THE CHERRY MOON – TWIN FLAME PERSPECTIVE","author":"Andrea Mai","date":"November 2, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Prince is most known for his Purple Rain movie, but in my opinion, his best movie is Under The Cherry Moon. It didn't do well at the box office, and it got poor reviews from critics. 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