Blocks spread out across the floor…it’s a mess of color and shapes; chaos.

She wants me to play, but I am tired. Yet still I get down on the floor and start to build. She feels my presence and begins her imaginative game, knowing I’m an arms length away. I build. She doesn’t really want to play with me but rather next to me. She wants me near her, and so when I get up to get a drink of water she sits up straight and begs me to stay. I reassure her I’m just thirsty…I will be right back, I promise. I am tired. She keeps looking up from her game, waiting for my return. As I sit back down on the floor, my hip pops in and out of the joint, uncomfortably but not painfully. She is instantly reassured that I am back and resume playing as I continue to build. We create a tower for her character, we build a safe place for it to reign. To rule. To be exactly who she wants it to be. I rub my eyes and just sit and after a while she notices, but she’s okay, as long as I am with her.

She is oblivious of my exhaustion, my mental capacity at its limit, overflowing. She knows nothing of the lists and the to-dos and the many “should’s” that tangle themselves up in my mind. She is unaware of the dark circles that ring around my eyes, sunken and sullen. My daughter doesn’t know of the worries I worry and the fears that I fear…

She only knows me as Mother. She looks at my smile and see’s the love I have for her.

She plays alongside me, she feels safe and secure when I am near.

I am tired.

But I am here.

I lift the colored blocks, red and blue, yellow and green and I stack them one after another. I make sure it is strong, unbeatable. Unbreakable.

And yet…

The real building has been within myself. An inner tower of resilience and strength.

I am HER tower, my presence stands tall and secure so that she can have a safe place to become who she needs to be, a confident ruler of her inner world. To reign over the outer, more demanding one with courage and perseverance.

I am tired. But I build anyway. Not just with blocks, but within. I build. For her.

But also, for me.

The making of the painting titled “Building a Tower”

This photo was taken by my husband as I sat on the floor playing with our youngest daughter. I was exhausted, I am always exhausted, trying to balance motherhood with running a business and a home and raising three kids while homeschooling…it was a lot. Is a lot, still.

She begged me to play, the house was messy and the dishes undone, but I sat anyway. I built a tower with the blocks for her toys while she imagined a world for them; who they would be, what they would do, who their friends were…

I remembered a time when I played with that kind of imagination. Seems less and less these days, as I grow older, as if my world has already been built for me.

When I chose this photo as a reference image for a painting, I thought about the exhaustion I felt as a parent. I originally wanted to portray the innocence of the child while the adult took on the responsibility and stresses of life.

When I painted it, the process felt emotional and difficult. I even wrote an entry about how “muddy” it looked in my online studio journal. I cried.

I tried to emulate the exact scene, the colors of the rug, and the tones of the walls and floor. All of those colors were originally brown, blue, gray, and off-white.

The scene didn’t feel right to me, the colors weren’t resonating, so I put the painting aside and thought about it for a few days.

This is a common part of my practice as an artist. I often have to re-evaluate my color choices about half-way through a painting because something feels off.

I realized that I needed to brighten things up, make them playful and childish! The scene felt too dark and moody and I wanted to bring in light and love and a playfulness that felt more like my daughter.

The scene is now more than just overwhelm, adult stress, and exhaustion.

The mother in the background stares at the viewer, you can still see how tired she is, but the contradiction of the bright colors and lighthearted atmosphere makes you feel the love she has for her daughter. She will do anything for her.

Because that’s who we are as mothers, we show up, we strengthen, we provide for our children emotionally and mentally and physically. We do hard work within ourselves so that our children can feel safe enough to build within themselves, too.

That’s what I wanted.

I want the viewer to feel the love.

The strength.

The resilience.

The playfulness.

The power.

The beautiful, exhausted, overwhelmed, incredible, badass, loving mother.

Below:

“Building a Tower”

Oil in Canvas