I’ve been meaning to tell this story for a while. It’s about a broken palette knife and my mom.
It was about 15 years ago- a commission. A demon and an angel, interlacing. Complex, emotional, a rather different piece than my usual. I was almost done. The very last thing I needed to paint was the angel wings.
And I couldn’t get it. I could not figure out how to work my knife to get what I was seeing in my head onto the canvas. I tried. I grunted. I swore a little. Nothing.
So I did something I hadn’t done before. I asked for help. Not from anyone in the room. From mom.
And all of a sudden – swoosh swoosh swoosh. The technique came to me just like that. The wings came together. I felt it. That relief, that joy, that FINALLY.
On my last stroke, the knife broke.
And it was her knife. I inherited it when I lost her at 22.
I cried and laughed at the same time. Because I knew. I just knew. That was her telling me- you got this now.
She’s been gone a long time. But in that studio, in that moment, she wasn’t far at all.
She never is.
