LINEAGE: Love, Loss, and Roots

LINEAGE: Love, Loss, and Roots

This was my first solo art exhibit; a tribute to my mother and my Finnish roots. This collection of artwork began in my childhood home in Ohio after my mom passed away in May of 2020. When I returned to Maine in late 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 loss and life. The show is titled after a mama deer and doe 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 on a glacial lake near her home. I painted this piece with kids in mind so on grey winter days they'd step into the library and be greeted by a calming & magical scene. Presenting this body of work was much more than an accomplishment and milestone. It allowed me to see for myself and share what beauty can come from our pain, and to reconcile life after loss. Lineage was up for two months last fall and winter at the Peaks Island Library.