Hi,
Happy (almost) Mother’s Day.
This will be my first as a mother of three...
I’m writing to tell you about some new art I have been working on...
This work was made in the margins of my life and in the margins of the paper I use.
When I was pregnant with my third baby, I carried a small watercolor set with me everywhere. Just a few paints. At the beach, at the barn, while my older two children played or fed treats to our horse, I would work on intentional pieces. But over time, I began to notice something else forming beside them, on the second page where I would wipe my brush or let the extra paint fall.
Soft, dreamy marks began to appear there.
Unplanned. Flowing. Alive in their own quiet way.
They felt like little paintings that wanted to exist too.
This collection feels new for me. It is different from my previous work. Less structured, more intuitive. Less about creating something defined and more about allowing something to emerge. It surprised me and slowly drew me in.
I started this process while I was very pregnant with my daughter, moving slowly, sitting low to the ground while my children played in the river that meets the ocean near our home. Just as the paint softened at the edges, I felt softened too.
Then she arrived.
Those first months were tender and slow in the way only early postpartum can be. My husband would take the older two down to that same beach, and I would stay behind, curled up with my new baby, painting and drawing, trying to hold onto the feeling of it all.
And still, these small abstract pieces kept appearing.
Quiet. Gentle. Full of light
I fell in love with them, with their softness, their hope, their way of becoming. They felt like they belonged in the world, just as she did. Created in the in between, in the holding, in the resting.
And in that season, I realized that just as I was holding life, I was also holding light.
That is what this artwork is.
A fleeting moment where I got to hold both. Holding Light.
