My latest piece, A Mother’s Prayer, captures the quiet yet profound connection between a mother and her child, nestled in a meadow of wildflowers. This painting draws inspiration from the heartfelt photography of Janessa Parker and her journey to explore her Diné heritage. It reflects both the tenderness of motherhood and the deep spiritual threads that connect us to culture, land, and ancestry. It’s a piece rooted in love, longing, and the hope every mother holds for her child.
Lately, I’ve felt a craving to return to soft pastel. There’s something about the medium—its ability to layer, blur, and glow—that felt essential to this work. Pastel’s ethereal quality mirrors the intangible yet ever-present bond between mother and child, and it imbues this scene with a sense of timelessness, reverence, and magic.
Since becoming a mother, my understanding of female deities in spirituality has deepened. I feel a new and profound connection to Mother Earth, a tenderness toward Mary, and an expansion of my own spiritual practices—enhanced by reading Honest Advent by Scott Erickson. Motherhood has brought clarity to the sacred nature of nurturing, protecting, and guiding. These themes flow through every stroke of this painting.
While this piece is not a self-portrait in the physical sense—the woman depicted is inspired by an Indigenous mother, although Doug Good Feather would argue that at the root of it all we all come from indigenous people—it is a reflection of my own heart. At its core, it embodies the universal prayer of all mothers: that their children be safe, healthy, and kind. That they grow to love others, to care for the world, and to leave it better than they found it. And perhaps most poignantly, that they hold on to the magic and wonder we so often forget as adults, and in doing so, remind us of it too.
A Mother’s Prayer is as much about the woman as it is about the child. It’s a portrait of hope, connection, and a quiet promise—a prayer whispered into the wind, carried on the spirit of the wildflowers, and etched into the roots of the earth. For me, it’s a reminder that no matter where we come from, we’re all bound by the same love and hope for the next generation.
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