acrylic on paper, unframed

11” x 17”

2021

Creating every single piece of art feels sacred to me. When a painting is inspired entirely by personal circumstances and vision and discoveries, it’s an intimate, introspective process, but each brush stroke is still embedded with all the endless ways that nature and other people have added beauty and wisdom and inspiration to my experience that is fueling the painting.

When I have the privilege of creating a commissioned piece, the sense of honor only grows. When a client decides to invest in and trust and believe in my creative process and vision, it is a gift - when I am trusted with the precious job of bringing someone else’s dream to life - I feel the marvelous weight of that. It’s a distinct privilege that I do not take that lightly.

When I was approached about creating this painting, it was one of those times when I felt the honor to the fullest extent. I had the invitation to play a small role in making a nursery come to life for a baby that is being endlessly loved and prayed for even though the couple doesn’t know them, yet. This pair of clients who have fearlessly traveled the world are now embarking on the fierce adventure of adoption and felt that a painting of the Northern Lights would be the perfect addition to the safe and cozy nursery that their some-day child will sleep and grow and play in.

The processes of adoption and foster care are nothing short of complex, heart wrenching, hope-filled, and divine and as I had the privilege of making this piece that now hangs over a little one’s future crib, I felt overcome by empathetic feelings of hope and waiting and wishing and desperate dreaming. It got me thinking a lot about divinity and the sacred act of loving a child born to another person with your entire being…how selflessly choosing another person to inhabit a huge part of your heart is promising to be their person; promising to be their guide and their safety and their source of endless love forever. If anything feels like a sacred promise made and kept, it’s adoption.

Here’s to the parents - the moms and dads who fearlessly love their biological babies and to the foster parents, the adopted mamas and dads, the grandparents, and aunts and uncles, the friends who so completely and endlessly love little ones that they didn’t happen to birth themselves.