Chomping on the Obstacle

maybe it has answers for us

I’m still acclimating to 2025. It’s a lot, no?

I wouldn’t call it a resolution, exactly, just something that keeps talking loudly to me:

The obstacle is the path.

Or, as in a Nigerian proverb, May your road be rough.

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When my children were first born, the studio was the one place I could go to give space to my own thoughts. My artwork became more visceral and raw, to capture physical and emotional states I had never felt before.

Preliminary sketch, and “Birth”, the first large-scale work I made containing figuration, and my experience with birth and postpartum. 96x192x6”. 2021.

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Being pregnant brought me into my body in an undeniable way and made me want to draw it, to comprehend it.

Some of my first drawings when pregnant with Gioia, seeking to understand my experience. 2020.

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Now I draw my children, taking pleasure in their small faces, and trying to hold onto their rapid growth away from me.

I’m happy in the mystery of abstract painting, but drawing is my edge–drawing people and situations. It’s clear in its pursuit, so failure is waiting. It doesn’t have the obfuscation possible in abstraction.

Drawing is also cozy, when I can capture a sweet moment, a familiar face. The pairing of edgy and cozy interests me. And I’m drawing motherhood, such a treacly, misrepresented, flattened subject. I’m drawing it WITH my children. I drew Gioia’s face above, she drew her arms and dress.

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When I decided to bring my children into the studio to paint and draw on large swaths of canvas, I relinquished control of my last boundary: between being a mother and an artist.

This has changed the course of my work. It’s brought me into a place of free-association and open-ended curiosity. The kids bring freshness and surprise. They open me to doodling and remove some of the expectations I have for a painting.

Through their contributions and a surrealist mining of my own anxieties, memories and fantasies, I bring forth a kind of everything-place of parenting and being an artist.

This painting, “House Arrest,” contains drawings and scribbles from both kids, acrylic, ink, oil pastel, crayon, marker, puff paint, stickers, paper, and post-it notes.

GIOIA is scrawled through the clouds, along with a baby in a belly, and a swarm of Paw Patrol stickers. A weary eye peaks out from princess hair, fists rise up in resistance, or submission.

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Children are the obstacle. They take all my time and resources! But letting them be the path has changed everything.

We may not have a choice but to embrace that change is here, and the road is rough.

Let me know how you’re doing. Hold on, and let go. We’ve got each other.