Ocean Wind

About this art When Matt and I first met, we traveled to New Zealand. At the time, we had no idea it would be our first, (and last), big trip before children. There was something undeniably magical about it: a place where the landscape shifts from ocean to ice in a single day. We spent a week exploring the South Island in a van taking it all in as we went. It was the kind of trip that stays with you, that quietly changes you. This artwork is rooted in that feeling. I hope it carries a bit of that magic, and that it brings you even a small sense of the joy and wonder I felt during that trip. About this series: HOLDING LIGHT This was art made in the margins of my life and in the margins of the paper I use. When I was pregnant with my third baby, I would bring my watercolor set with me wherever we would go. Just a few paints, when we would go to the beach or the barn, I would draw and work on intentional pieces while my older two children played or fed treats to our horse. Over time, I started noticing, that on the second page, the one catching the extra paint, where I would dry my brush to knock extra water off… that the brush would leave these soft, dreamy watercolor marks that had a life all of their own. These blotches were so beautiful, just flowing together and becoming little secondary paintings, like they wanted to come into being too. I started this process when I was so very pregnant with my third baby (Delphina), sitting low in a chair, moving slowly, while my kids played in the river that flows into the ocean by our house. Just as the paint was soft around the edges, I was too. Then, a little later, my third was born, and those first three months were sweet and slow in the way only early postpartum can be. After she was born, my husband would take the older two kiddos down to the beach to that same spot, and I would stay back, snuggled up with my new babe, drawing and drawing and painting and painting… trying to capture all the feelings from this tender time. And again, these little watercolor abstracts kept appearing, so quiet and gentle, like they were just waiting to come to be. I fell in love with them. With their softness and the joy: the little windows of hope, all made with a baby in my arms. They feel like they, like my daughter, wanted a place in the world - coming to life in the in-between, in the holding, the resting, the becoming. And, so just was I was holding life, I was also holding light. Because that is what this artwork is: a brief moment in time where I got to hold and create life and light. And a small credit, always, to Ocean Paper in Hawaii. They make the paints I use, and they are a part of the magic too. ♡ Pairs beautifully with Opening Skies.