It’s official. I’ve gone over a year without writing a thing on this blog. While that was never my intention, I think it was a necessary break. A lot has happened in a year, and I won’t recap it here, because most of you know, I had a baby, and motherhood is honestly the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
I will briefly state, however, that motherhood hasn’t come without its challenges. I’ve learned a lot in the last year, and frankly, the hardest learned lesson falls somewhere between “giving myself grace” and “punctuality is a luxury that single childless people have.”
This Christmas, I was approached by a local mom to do a couple portraits of her children as a gift for her parents. I was apprehensive to take the commission. It would be the first since Bennett came along and I wasn’t sure I could still create in the same way I used to. I wasn’t sure that I still had the talent or the skill to be worthy of a commissioned art piece, let alone two.
Can I just say, she was the most perfect person that God could’ve sent me to remind me of the gifts He gave me? She was so ahead of the game, asking me sometime in November if I would make these portraits for her. When I finally overcame my anxiety and accepted the job, I anticipated it would take me a total of 10 hours to complete both pieces.
I had 6 weeks to complete the project. Thats roughly 42 days. Around 670 hours to complete this project that I expected would take me 10. Should be no problem…right?
Wrong. Between the anxiety-procrastination and figuring out how to balance motherhood with my new job and my identity as an artist, I couldn’t seem to find even 10 hours in almost 700 that I could spare. Isn’t that crazy?
Through all of this, and I do mean ALL of it, she was the picture of patience. She checked in a couple of times, but never in a way that made me feel like she’d lost confidence in me to get it done. Fast forward to the week before Christmas, and my family became quarantined. Her confidence in me didn’t waiver (and if it did, she never led me to believe it did).
I worked on the portraits almost every night after work, powering through the fatigue from COVID to get these done for her. Don’t worry, Zach made sure to point out that “[I] did this to [myself].” That fight is a totally different story.
I was able to get her the finished products one day before she needed them. Now, I’m not bragging on my incredibly close call on a deadline. I told this story because somewhere in all of that mess, I found a little bit of my passion back. Through the motherhood, anxiety, fear, illness, and exhaustion, I still really enjoyed making art.
There are definitely things I would change about these pieces, but she really appreciated them and still insisted on paying me full price, even though I would say my lack of punctuality certainly qualified her for a discount. Despite the parts of these portraits I would change, I still am proud of my work, because of everything I overcame to create them. I was reminded that just because I’m a mom, it doesn’t mean I lost the other parts of my identity.
I am still an artist, a musician, a wife, and a boss lady. I am still determined, fun, friendly, and creative.
I want to thank that wonderful woman who reminded me of this. She was so patient, kind, and supportive through the whole process and I truly thank God for her! She was the perfect person for God to use to remind me of this part of my existence and I can’t say enough nice things about her.
While this project wasn’t perfect, or in my mind punctual, the lessons it taught me were astronomical.
I’ll be announcing something in the next couple days about my plans for freelance work going forward. As always thanks for your support!