LINEAGE: Love, Loss, and Roots

This was my first solo art exhibit; a tribute to my mom and our Finnish roots. I began this collection of art in Ohio, in my childhood home, after my mom passed away in May of 2020 from pancreatic cancer. When I returned to Maine in the fall of 2021, I continued painting as a way to process my grief. The result was a body of work with ancestral themes, imbued with nature and tenderness, and reverence for the cycles of life, the rite of passage of losing a parent. The show is titled Lineage after a doe and fawn I painted in 2023, but the main piece of the show came through in the final hour; three trumpeter swans my dog and I would visit at a lake near her home. I painted this piece with kids in mind to counteract grey Maine winter days a little, so they'd step into the library and be greeted by a calming & magical scene. I’d always wanted to create a body of work, but presenting this collection was more than an accomplishment and milestone. Losing my mom was the impetus that allowed me to finally do it. The show opened dialogue for myself and others around the trauma, deaths, and unfulfilled ceremonies that so many of us experienced during the pandemic. In a way, this was my own “Celebration of Life” in lieu of the real one we weren't able to have. It was a gift to have the space in the library to hang all of this work together, and to share what I created while reconciling life after such a seismic loss. Lineage was up for two months last fall and winter at the Peaks Island Library.