About the work

My dog soulmate, Oscar, passed away during Covid-19. Prior to my current relationship, he was my only companion for 10 years. We were together for a decade – my longest relationship. Just before the Pandemic hit, he was diagnosed with cancer. I did a desperate round of crowdfunding and, with the help of my friends, was able to get him emergency surgery, which bought him an extra year of life. Since I work from home and was otherwise alone all day, having his companionship definitely made the pandemic much easier to bear. He passed away in January of 2021. While he was dying, I realized that, as I have no human children, my relationship with him was how I expressed my intrinsic motherhood. I created this painting to celebrate the different ways in which we parent—whether we give birth, mother human children, have furbabies, or mother ourselves, our spouses, and our friends (or all of the above!). “Mother Within” is a celebration of motherhood in all its forms.