I always loved my birthday growing up - it felt so good to be the center of attention in my family. There was a joy in getting to pick the flavor of one’s cake, or what we’d do as a family unit.

A favorite cake - yellow box cake, chocolate frosting from the tub, plain M&M’s dotting the outside. The crunch and the combo of textures plus the sugar and chemical overload - sublime.

The photo above was not from a birthday, the collection I’m wading through is from my Grandma Creel - she was a relentless documentarian. Not particularly good at photography, but good at making sure there was some photographic evidence of our gathering.

Part of her ethos I suppose was that since her grandchildren lived so far away from her, she needed the photos to keep her company in between visits. But, what often happened was that at the end of the visit the camera would come out and we would all be forced for pictures - I swear, someone could use this as a premise for a horror film. Maybe I will.

The photographing was annoying sure. But I didn’t mind getting my photo taken. It’s hilariously true to the essence of me that I really performed for the camera. As opposed to everyone else in the family whose annoyance you can still see in the photographic evidence laid bare for a careful knowing looker to observe.

But maybe I performed because in addition to my innate love of the camera, I also was GC’s fave. And I soaked it up. Boy oh boy did I soak it up.

This family archive of mostly bad pictures has been a treasure trove for me in finding elements for the works currently up at the Kaddatz.

I don’t remember this little blond curly haired dolly - but she’s in one of the paintings hanging in the gallery now. Helping me make sense all these years later of gender, expectations, and the weather patterns of my childhood upbringing.

So many little easter eggs of my own finding.

So many calls out to the universe to see what echos back in return.

I’m grateful to the fervent requests for photos from GC. It remains one of the precious ways I can remember her and our relationship now.

These paintings are out in the world now, doing new work. While I continue to download the healing and information I ask of them from back in the Erhard Hills of Studio Utopia.

Mostly what I’m holding close is the sadness of the loss of both of my grandmothers. We lost Abuela on the 9th of November last year.

I never knew when it would be the last time Abuela would pan fry me more tacos than I thought I could eat.

Or when it would be the last time I would gaze upon the cake pan with a tower of chile dripping cheese enchilladas.

I turn 44 on Sunday, and I can’t help but wonder what it was like to become a grandmother at this age, like my grandmas were.

It takes a lot to birth a painting; but also it makes me wonder, of what the painting births? 

I feel tender and hollow, and sometimes joyful. I feel the reverberation of what the last two months of busy brought. But I also feel like I’m in the cool down run after the cross country race. I sense the need to tend to the portals that were opened because of these quilted paintings, and the call to go back into the abyss.

Of course I’m feeling all these feels! It is Scorpio Season, and this scorpio is definitely feeling the chrysalis stage of death and rebirth. The old version of me is dying, and making way for the new. I want to keep holding onto the past but know it can only makes sense from the present.

I’m overhauling new ways of being and integrating new practices and trying to build new habits. For this I feel equal parts scared and optimistic.

I honor my past, and I live here in the present. Where I get to make the life that I want. The dream of my grandmothers. Who loved me then, and love me now.

May your senses be filled with delights. May your stomach be fed with foods that nourish your body and spirit. May your heart be full.

Thank you little me for the lessons in resilience. And for anyone else who might need to celebrate you in these times.

I love you.

You didn’t do anything wrong.

You’re doing so great right now.

Sending love to you and yours in this autumnal season and the last six months of the calendar year. May be taking the path on which we’re called. To create, to love, to live.

(Want to help celebrate me? Join my monthly Ko-Fi Club. Big things are on the way I promise! Thank you to those who continue to support me and my work.)