Through my Mother's Eyes

The Heart sees differently

I finally worked up the courage to create my Illustrator Portfolio.

This is a monumental achievement, because my self-identification as an illustrator is tangent to my ability to see myself an illustrator. For some reason, I can see myself as an Author, or as a Musician, because I have some confidence in those assessments; I have feedback to let me know I’ve done something right. But Illustrator means Artist, and I have a high bar which to aspire…

my Mother.

She was a Renaissance Woman flourishing in a blossoming America. A Sharecropper’s Daughter, she became a student of physics before she burned out and ran away to live a beatnik life on the road with my Father, travelling from Mexico to Alaska on the new Pan-American Highway.

Father was a Free Spirit, a brilliant, hotheaded Jobshopper with a penchant for inventing incredible contraptions and getting into fights; finding him irresistible, Mother chased after him while he chased his dreams. Hauling their trailer behind them, they wrote poetry and sang songs, living their Adventure. Loving the scenery, Mother began to paint, putting pigment upon tiny canvasses as they travelled the Al-Can Highway. The Adventures kept rolling, down to Malibu, through the Pacific Northwest, across the Great American Midwest - and the painting piled high, visions of a life lived in Freedom.

Then came The Children.

These Children came at a high personal price; a decade of infertility led to a desperate attempt at the only therapy available at the time - surgery, then more childlessness. Over a decade of longing and failed attempts at adoption gave way to acceptance of God’s will… then, over the age of 35, the Dam of Miracles broke and Mother gave birth to three of us in five years.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, my Parents did not settle down. They still travelled, hauling us with them all over the Lower Forty-Eight, hiking, driving and adventuring their way into a staggering 18 cross-country moves over the course of my childhood. In the eye of this constant relocation storm, Mother established two businesses, gained certifications, and became a million-dollar selling realtor while looking fabulous in silk scarves and tailored polyester pantsuits.

She was a modern woman.

Mother did, however, see the value in raising her own children. She was not above caring for the yowling rugrats she birthed, and decided that cookies and aprons would be appropriate, as long as her Easel and paints were nearby. No matter where we moved, a room was reserved for the Art of Oil Painting. And inevitably, one of us would be snagged to model for her. From the wrap-around porch where I was flinging myself into rosebushes, Mother beckoned to me -

covered in dirt and thorns, I answered the call.

Entering the Temple of Art was a privilege, and I knew to be reverent. The panoply of color and smell announced the birth of paintings: tubes of Titan Red and Titanium White lay scattered about stretched canvasses, palette smeared with Yellow Ochre and Pthalo Blue to create a slow-drying spectacle of light and shadow. The smell of Turpentine mixed with the incense of her Marlboros - she was always careful not to light herself on fire accidentally - creating a sanctuary of her soul, the Artist at peace with her life of Motherly chaos.

I sat as she created the slow-developing portrait of the decade long-quest for children, Creation of Creation…

Looking back on this, I realise she took Artistic License to the extreme. There are no scratches, no grass-stains, no snaggle-toothed childish grins; my woolly nature announces itself only through my hair, which she had attempted to smooth into place. As I sat, she explained the use of the colour wheel, the mixing of pigments, perspective and the patience of waiting to dry. She also explained the role of the Artist, to see things not merely as they were, but as they had been, could be, or never was…

this was her future vision of me. Older, more elegant, a young woman she had yet to meet - it would manifest, even if only briefly. Like all things human, that moment was fleeting, and even though the peach satin didn’t match her envisioned burgundy, the prom dress was almost the same.

In all things, the lessons she taught me are never far away. I don’t see myself the way she did; whether as an Author, a Musician or an Artist, I am blind sometimes to my own nature, the truth of who I am or what I could be; but through the eyes of my Mother, I see myself in a different light:

the eye of the Artist sees with the Heart.