Mother

Mother, oil on board, 40"x60", 2010

"Mother"- where do they get that glow and strength?

Gabe and I spent our whole summer last year around our sister-in-law at our parents home in MN. This is a portrait of my sister-in-law, Liz, and her first son Issac. I knew Liz for almost 5 years before this summer but I was blown away by the energy and glow she had after she gave birth to Issac. I felt so happy and proud of her. The beauty and the power of a strong mother was so incredible. I immediately wanted to capture her moment in my painting.


My first attempt was painting on a small oval canvas, and give it to her as a gift. But as I was painting it, I felt that her strength and the essence that I wanted to capture was not enough in this small canvas. SO, for the 24 hour painting challenge in 2010, I started a new painting of her.

Since I was working at school for 24 hours, a student was critiquing my work.

After painting for 12 hours straight, I was thinking well... when you give birth, there is not such a thing as to stop and do over! So I wanted to try painting for all 24 hours straight, as much as I could! In the end, I couldn't finish my painting in 24 hours, so later I worked on it at home. It was a fun meditative journey and it is dedicated to all the mothers in the world.


Also the project was accompanied by two other crazy artists, Gabe Ostley (my love) and Mark Montgomery who worked on 24 hour comics on that day!