Mother's Touch

I just finished this 9 panel ATC set for a swap. I sketched out the hand and the various parts with a sharpie marker and then painted it with acrylics. I wanted it to have a "homemade" quality to it, so I made the brushstrokes obvious and didn't try too hard to make things neat, letting one color overlap another and not worrying if washes were dry before adding the next. I was actually thinking of illustrations from the 60s and 70s when I was sketching it, specifically the cover of a diary I had when I was a child and the old Clairol Herbal Essence shampoo bottle. That was what my mother always used when I was a kid and I remember burying my face in her hair and breathing in the scent of it. I miss that original scent and that funky green color it used to be!

I call this piece (or pieces if you will) "Mother's Touch". I would hope the reasons are obvious. I was specifically thinking about the way my mother raised me and the way I am trying to raise my kids. There are things that I choose to do differently, but overall I'm raising my kids much the same way I was raised, not out of blind devotion to her parenting methods but because much of what my mother did makes sense to me now, although sometimes for different reasons.

As for the symbology in this painting, the hand is based on my own but is also representative of my mother's. The lily-like flowers on the back of the hand stand for feminine wisdom - mother wit, if you will. The poppy-like flower straddling the middle and right hand bottom cards represents me and my growth as a person because of my own mother's loving guidance and because of my own mothering journey. The three hearts in the bottom right panel are me and my kids and the music below them is representative of my mother's influence, always in the background like the soundtrack of our lives, whether she is physically present or not. In my mind, music notes were the only possible symbol for my mom in this painting since she is always humming or singing and has always done so as far back as I can remember. Her singing and humming are some of my earliest memories.

The ladybug is the only touch of sadness in this painting for me. You know the old rhyme "ladybug, ladybug fly away home"? That's why it's there. I always wondered what the ladybug in that rhyme felt when she went home to find that her children were all gone. I always thought it was a horrible sounding rhyme and felt sad for that poor ladybug mama. Losing my children is the worst thing I can possibly imagine. That thought lingers in the corners of my mind and is often the thought that urges me to make every day the best, most loving day I can, because we never know which day will be the one that will later be known as "the last". That tiny little ladybug is like that tiny little thought, only occasionally drawing attention to itself with a little flash of stop-sign-red wings, but ever-present - a message from the spirit to stop and pay attention.

The rainbow coming from my heart is representative of both the love I feel for my children and the whole spectrum of beauty and wonder available to us in our joyful lives. The happiness that being a mother brings me overflows into the world around us. It's like that saying "if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy", but not in the negative way that most people understand it. If you see that phrase in a positive light, it means that the joy in our home starts with me. My mood affects the moods of those around me, especially my children. My perceptions literally color the world around us. If I see the joy and wonder - the *good* - in all that surrounds me, and if I express that energy in my interactions with my children, what glorious lives we all have!

There are also representations of both night and day for that 24/7 aspect of mothering. Parenting doesn't end when the kids are sent off to bed in our house. Being present and available for my kids is a round-the-clock necessity that started the moment they came into our lives. It started with birthing, breastfeeding, sharing sleep, and keeps going through nighmares, night time talks, and more and will stay that way in one form or another until our earthly relationship as mother and child is no more. Mother's are never "off duty" even when we aren't physically present. Some part of our hearts and minds are always with our children in one way or another, all day, all night, every day, every night, forever and always.

The rather hippie-ish peace sign with flowers and "love" I feel are pretty self explanatory. (What is it with me and hippie stuff lately?) I strive each and every day for peaceful interactions with my children and I knew when I started this piece that only one word would be spelled out on it - love - because that's what it all comes down to in the end - how much we loved, how deeply we loved, how *fully* we loved.

And finally there is the hand itself. The position of the hand was very important to me. I tried several different hand positions before finally settling on this one. It *looks* gentle, like someone getting ready to ever so gently touch a butterfly that has landed within reach. It looks like a hand that could never do harm, a hand that would never hit or grab. Hands are for hugging, not for hurting afterall, and the hand that I wanted to represent my own should be a gentle one.