I will call this Barbie Ecumenical Flashlight America 2023
My daughter left home last month. This was a significant leaving but I have found motherhood to be a series of leavings. The baby goes, and a toddler replaces them. The toddler leaves and a little girl arrives. A series of girls go and come until one day the door closes behind a young woman and she’s gone.
Before children start school and their brains are required to absorb and process a lot of social things, many children present amazing powers fuelled by their incredible memories. For Sadie, it was her ability to remember and use a broad vocabulary mostly acquired through watching television. During her early years, I kept a sporadic account of some of her utterances in a little pink book.
This body of work explores my experiences of loss, love and humour as I take the time motherhood does not always present one with, to reflect and process the ending of things, even as Sadie’s life is bursting with beginnings. I have used phrases from the little pink book to title each painting.