Category: familyAndfriends

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Annual “Girls Go” Gathering

Every year I get together with my sisters and mom for a long weekend. We hang out, eat chocolate, make art, talk, drink wine talk some more, drink coffee and tea, play games, walk, hike, and cook. Oh, and we eat some other things too. Not just chocolate. 😉

Our Girls Go gatherings have been a wonderful way for me — and I think for all of us — to become closer as adults. I live so far away from the rest of the family and I really appreciate our relaxed sister-bonding yearly retreats. There are 5 of us sisters and two sisters in law who are as much part of the family as any of us. And of course, our mom, Pat.

This year we spent almost 4 whole days on Vancouver Island, near where two sisters and mom live year round. We found a great vacation rental house right on the Saanich Peninsula north of Victoria and Sidney. Right on the ocean. Oh joy!

Mom is moving into a retirement community next month, and she has always loved having a handmade decoration on her front door. As our art project this time, we made some decorations for her new apartment door. We collaborated on four, one for each season. She likes birds so we went with a bird-ish theme. Mom loves them!

We also visited one of my favorite 1+1=1 Gallery artists, Sarah Magar, in her home and studio. Sarah lives with her husband in a sweet little house smack on the open west coast of Vancouver Island — in the teensy town of Sooke. Her ceramic studio is literally about 4 steps from the kitchen door and looks out on the broody moody glorious ocean. Check out a few peeks of Sarah’s home and studio below. When I have time I am planning to write an article about Sarah on our gallery website. She’ll be our next featured artist.

On the way back to Helena, we stayed overnight at a friend’s house, then spent a few hours visiting the Pratt printmaking studio in Seattle. That is like letting me into a candy store! The creativity, diversity, enthusiasm and delight from all of the printmakers working in the studio was thick! I’ll write another post just about the Pratt studio and those amazing artists. Watch for it.

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Portrait of Life Well Lived

Mom 21I love my mom so much it makes my heart feel like it’s going to explode. I can feel it in my chest. I feel it in my throat. I feel it in my hands and belly and spine. I know it in my eyes. I know this love in my mind and in my soul.

When I look at her — really look deeply at her — I see her for who she is and not just for who she has been for me.

Mom 5

I love to listen to her stories. I love to support her on my arm as we walk. Wrap my arm around her slender shoulders. Laugh with her. Bring her a cup of tea. Cover her with an extra blanket. Open the car door for her. Share our tears. Share chocolate. Watch her when she doesn’t know I am looking. Wash her hair in the kitchen sink. Cook for her.

I love knowing in the night, that she is snoring gently in a room just a few feet from mine … love knowing she loves me, because when I thanked her for letting me take these portraits of her, and for spending these almost-3-weeks with me, she hugged me and cried. We both cried.

Mom 16

Mom is 82. I feel more deeply connected to her now that I am an adult, than I remember ever feeling as a child. That is not to say I wasn’t close to Mom when I was little — maybe depth of relationship comes with the compression of time, with the way age matters less and less as we grow older. The difference between 80 and 60 is less than between 25 years old and 5.

Mom 9

Today I watched her through my lens. She knew I was looking. She knew my camera would capture every wrinkle and blemish, yet she relaxed and let me pursue something I have wanted for a long time … to capture the elusive portrait of someone who is part of me. Who is so deeply connected to me that when the time comes to let her go it will be the hardest thing I will ever do.

Mom 12

Mom 7 Mom 6

Maybe depth of relationship comes with changes inside me. Changes in that place of rebellion that still burns like a stubborn ember of fire. When I look in the mirror nowadays, I see my facial features softening, melting a little. I look like my mother. I am becoming a beautiful crone. A wise woman. Like her. When I see her through my camera viewfinder, I see myself in 20-some years. And I hope with all my heart, that I am as good and kind and loving a human being as my mom is.

A few more from our photo shoot today: