This is for my mother who would have been 106 years old on April 30 and who gave up riding horses to get married and have children. She was gifted in many ways, one of which was riding horses.
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On Mother's Day, I sat down at my drawing table with a piece of bristol board paper and a set of poétique watercolor brush pens that were given to me by a friend recently. With my left hand, I drew what was in front of me at my drawing table. Just now I finished what I had begun yesterday, adding words and letters and symbols to the background, all with my left hand. The Day of the Dead figure belonged to my mother who not only rode horses well but had the gifts of writing and of being able to be creative in so many ways.
Our relationship was difficult for reasons I will never fully know. Her relationship with her mother was difficult for reasons I will never fully know. Who knows how long that pattern was repeated. I have no children and will not carry on that pattern. I sense that my creative life is something that few mothers in my line were able to have. From what I could see, my mother experienced agonizing conflict regarding her life as a wife and mother. She pursued a creative life once my sisters and I were grown. When I sense her presence now, it is peaceful in a way it never was when she was alive.
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My grandmother and my mother in 1916 in Minnesota:
My mother and me in 1949 in California:
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