The Art I Made The Day I Weaned My Last Baby

Coming back to Creativity

I’ve always enjoyed making things. When I was young, I painted, knitted and gardened.

I was the only quilting teen I knew.

I wrote stories during my summers off as a teacher.

I taught myself to crochet after my twins were born.

Many times, as a busy parent, I found it so much easier to veg out on Facebook than to actually make something beautiful, but over use of social media wasn’t as restorative to my soul as making something.

Creativity Makes My Heart Feel Better

On the day I weaned my youngest baby, my heart was sad because I knew I would never nurse another child. An era of motherhood was over.

I found this prayer on the internet that day.

The canvas was already purchased. Up until that day, I hadn’t made much visual art. I didn’t have any special paints. My kids’ poster paint and brushes worked just fine. The magazine stockpile I collected from my mom’s subscriptions was ready to go.

I think it might be my first official mixed media work.

A Family Mission Statement

The book I was reading at the time said to brainstorm aspects you value around family and make a family mission statement. I can’t remember the title. There were so many books on parenting in those days.

I decided to do the mission statement as an art piece I could see everyday. The metaphor I used for my family mission was cultivation. I put the kids names on a tomato plant. We live on a farm and have a huge garden, including oodles of tomatoes, so the comparison rang true with farm life.

I wasn’t even sure at that point if I had the skills to make the image look good enough to be recognizable. The words were going to be done with magazine letters cut out separately like a ransom note, but that looked terrible and was very difficult. The final art piece uses words printed out from the computer and painted with a glaze of Modge Podge and color.

There’s been a lot more mixed media work since then. I’ve even written a children’s book with mixed media illustrations.

Self-expression Heals and it Spreads

Making that piece on the day I was feeling deep sadness was very healing for me. I’ve gone on to buying actual acrylic paint, brushes and matte medium, so I don’t need to borrow my kids’ supplies anymore.

The best part about creative self-expression is the example it gives to the kids. Sometimes they borrow my watercolors, acrylics or brushes. Here’s our family art wall:

It can be hard to put the cell phone away and pick up the paint brush, but it can be very restorative as well.