“Looking Up” 6×6, oil on gessoboard, $75 [button link=”http://www.dailypaintworks.com/fineart/denise-hopkins/looking-up/230840″ type=”big”] Buy Now[/button]

It’s Mothers Day so I thought about painting something “momish”, but I never could quite think of what it should be.  I thought a lot about my mom and the time I lost a diamond bracelet when I was in high school.  I was devastated.  Thought I’d incur the wrath of the universe for losing something so valuable.  What my mom said to me when I finally found the courage to tell her I’d lost it was something I still think about.  I don’t remember her exact words but the message was that the bracelet wasn’t valuable after all.  It was a thing.  And things are just things.  

My bird paintings seem to always be about simplicity–  in brushstroke, color, and meaning.  They remind me not to worry.  Not to plan too far ahead.  Not to be self-important.  Not to gather material possession into barns, hoard them, boast of them, delight in them.  Today is about delighting in the act of painting, the joy of motherhood, the gift of my family, the friends without whom I would never paint birds, never know peace in the midst of struggle.