Girls

I’ve been working on commissions the past few weeks… here is a detail of a painting recently completed of a BOY!

People ask me all the time why I don’t do boys. I think they often assume I am the mother of girls and so like girls better.

But my usual answer is this: I’m not a boy. My Girls series is not about my experiences of motherhood but of childhood. I’m the oldest of two girls but I spent a lot of time alone growing up. I spent a lot of time sitting on rocks thinking or playing with our assortment of small animals (hampsters, turtles, kittens).

There is a sweetness, innocence and confidence that young girls have that I’m trying to remember, capture, bring back. Reimagine. Just think about a 3-year-old girl dancing unself-consciously in the living room. She is not shy. She is beautiful and graceful and she looks right at you. See me? Aren’t I fabulous? And of course she is.