My Mother's Painting and a Moment in Time

I promised to share the painting my mother did of my daughter for Christmas. It began with a photo I took several years ago on a visit to Hopewell Furnace. (This is a cropped version of the full image.) Hopewell is a park with an old mill and forgery buildings that are still filled with the remnants of their former glory, piles of old rusty metal objects, old benches and tools and the light on this particular day was spectacular. Unfortunately I lost the bulk of the pictures I took, but thankfully this pic of my daughter didn’t get lost. We were outside walking past a window and it all sort of fell into place. I asked her not to smile and she looked up and gave me this soulful gaze. I kept thinking it would make an incredible painting, but I’m not a skilled painter. I asked my mother earlier this year if she might be willing to create a painting inspired by this for her granddaughter as a legacy. As you can see, she did a wonderful job. This painting is even more striking in person than this photo shows. Photograph Margot Potter Copyright 2006
Painting Copyright 2008 Sharon Scanlin All Rights Reserved

My mother is an incredibly gifted fine artist, writer, graphic artist and craftswoman. When I was a kid, she made mind blowing dimensional macramé sculptures with driftwood and feathers, crocheted afghans, painted metal mailboxes and old metal milk jugs, baked bread, decorated our home beautifully on a dime, made awesome Halloween costumes...and her paintings and charcoal drawings were exquisite. Being a single mom with three daughters, there wasn’t a lot of time for creativity and her artwork took a back seat to the task of raising us, but I’ve always hoped she’d pick her paintbrush back up. This painting is a gift not only to my daughter and me, but I hope also to my mother. Three creative women are now united through this moment in time and I’m so, so grateful my mother was willing to take the painstaking effort of making this museum worthy work of art.

Thank you, Mom. You have always amazed me and I love you more than mere words could ever express.

Love,
Margot

A quick note to the two folks who won the pens last week, your names are in the post, but I’ve not heard from you! Please email me at margot@margotpotter.com with your mailing addresses so I can get your pens out!