Labor of Love

One of my best friends lost her mother last week. My heart aches for her.  She has been away for several weeks now during this difficult vigil and will return home in a few days.  I tried every way I could think of to figure out how I could attend her mother's memorial service so I could be there but I just couldn't make it work financially or otherwise.  So....

I wanted to do something meaningful for my friend who means so much to me. This is really going out on a limb for me creatively.  I always cringe when someone calls me "creative" or "artistic" because I don't really feel I am any of those things.  I love trying new things and fooling around with collage and sketching and sewing and painting but I am certainly a "jack of all trades, master of none."

A co-worker gave me a few small canvases he found in a donation bin a month ago and I pulled one out last night.  I cannot do an accurate representation of my friend's mother.  This is more of an impression that attempts to capture an emotion:

I'm still working on  it.  I need to do some more filling in with my charcoals and Stabilo pencil.  It is hard to see but I added a yellow haze around her head.  I didn't want literally to put her in a robe with a cross around her neck and angel wings. But I wanted to convey transformation and the promise of a better world in the face of painful loss.

I don't know. Maybe this whole thing is silly. Maybe I'm going to embarrass myself.

In the end, though, I hope that when I present this to my friend that she will see it for what it truly is....a labor of love.


**UPDATE**  I found a Bible verse that I am going to try and incorporate into the piece:

"Give her the reward she has earned, and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.--Proverbs 31:31."