I painted my matriarchal lineage after years of only painting other people's families🥹 Someone please clap!
After a year and a half of working on this painting, I can officially say that as of Mother's Day, I have completed one of the most important and impactful paintings of my art career. My first completed and signed oil painting, finished in my current art studio which used to be my grandmother's bedroom, with tears in my eyes and love in my heart as I finished it.💗
My grandma and her first 5 children all picked cotton to buy the 40 acres of land that we live on and have family reunions on now. My grandmother was a force and a light in my life. A walking medical miracle, too. She had 5 cancers and no operations and lived longer than anyone I ever knew.
Every flower and berry painted on this piece is currently growing on our land, and reminds me of family reunion trips to Arkansas and sleeping in her house with no A/C😂 Little did I know I'd spend her last summer there together with her before she passed on at age 92. I was a child then, my mom being the youngest of 12. I'm so grateful that I got the chance to know her and build such a beautiful relationship before she left to her next home.
And I'm so grateful to my own mother, who kept me and shaped me and got me and my siblings through so much, including that time of being her caretakers. My mom is the reason why I was able to have space to thrive academically and do well in public speaking which got me to Duke University, where I took an oil painting class and started this piece. She showed me how to make something out of nothing and always encouraged me in blazing my own path, and I will always be grateful to her for that.
I'm so honored to share a legacy with such amazing mothers. And I walk in my life everyday keeping them in mind. I gotta make sure I keep these iconic vibes that they passed on going!🥹
Thank you to every portrait commission that brought me to this day. Sometimes you gotta take the long way around to something that's on your heart. Every portrait that I painted for someone else helped me build up my strength to paint my own and the one that would matter to me most. I sobbbbeddd while painting this, but it brought me closure I didn't know I even needed until I started working on it.🤍 Thank you, thank you, thank you. And thank YOU for reading! I hope you enjoyed. Bc I sure did!🥹🫶🏾✨
(If you like this piece and wanna see more and support my work and even commission a painting of your own, I'm on Instagram and TikTok @gracefineart ! My website is gracefineartstudio.com 🌸)