All in Good Time

In 2020 an artist friend passed away, beginning a process of grief and reflection that brought me back to painting. After lockdown subsided, quitting a corporate career, and becoming a parent, I began to revisit the years spent in the student painting studio. I slowly created hundreds of color swatches, a process first done alongside my lost classmate.

In 2024 I created my first heartfelt painting in over a decade, a small study of an iceberg off the coast of Iceland. That fall I travelled to Iceland with a camera in hand, hoping to return with photos of dramatic landscapes, somber water, and ice to serve as reference photos for future paintings. I captured some incredible images, but they felt at home in the form of photography. So that is where they will stay. To my surprise, dandelions filled the space in my mind’s eye that waits to be painted. Prior to leaving for the trip I had done a study of my child’s hair for a larger portrait of her picking dandelions in the yard. Upon visiting Iceland, I was touched to find dandelions everywhere, and to discover a cultural reverence for them among people there. This cheeky flower is a symbol of perseverance in harsh climate, grit, and the refusal to stop blooming. It is survival. As a mother and artist, I was deeply inspired by this and hope to follow the vision of this tenacious flower, this small glowing sun, in good time.