Image of the Week: The Mother Garden
© Durga Yael Bernhard
Well, I forgot about Mother's Day last week until after I sent out my post – but it's never too late to celebrate motherhood. This painting also celebrates spring, as I painted it in the month of May when my first child was six months old. Born at the end of November and bundled up all winter long, my son was jubilant at being outdoors in warm weather for the first time – and I was the center of the garden in which he blossomed and explored, always reaching outward – and always coming back to me, as babies do, for reassurance. It's bittersweet being someone else's home plate, for even then I knew how quickly it would end. So I tried to capture a magical moment in which a mother's embrace is her child's whole world. From that zone of safety, babies can thrive – and welcome the delight of interaction with the outside world, symbolized here by songbirds that flit in and out of the garden.
I was growing myself as a mother, too – noticing those birds with the fresh eyes of my own reawakened inner child, and forming my beliefs in what is now called "attachment parenting" – that is, an inherent trust in as much nursing, holding, and proximity as my children wanted, especially up until they became mobile.
The Mother Garden sold to a couple who similarly nurtured their own children – five of them, if my memory serves. Subsequently someone else commissioned me to create a second, larger painting of the same image – which I did, with pleasure. Often I have more than one version of an image in my head anyway, and welcome the opportunity to refine or expand it. Rarely have I sold both pieces. Mothering Magazine also licensed the image to illustrate an article about attachment parenting – I was most honored.
I did dozens of mother-and-child drawings and paintings throughout my three children's early years. I even published two calendars titled "The Mother's Eye." Looking back, those were the best years of my life.
The Mother Garden is available as a poster or card. I also have a few of those old calendars left. If you like mother-and-child art, they make a nice collection of posters. My old midwife decorated her office that way.
A good week to all!
D Yael Bernhard