My Little World
“Where are you, mama?”
Gemma hollers it as loud as she can every single morning. And every morning I think — I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.
Parenthood started for us after the pandemic but during a turbulent political season. I had spent years working — at least one job always, three at a time in college — and then a full time role that had me on a plane to a different city most weeks. By that fall, I made a choice that surprised even me: I stepped back. I became a stay-at-home mom.
It was an unfamiliar place. The work is real and relentless and it doesn’t get paid, rewarded, or acknowledged quite the same way. But something unexpected happened in that unfamiliarity.
I found my little world.
Morning breakfast routines. Caterpillar tea parties. The loud, scary voices of the adult world got quieter when I was fully present in this one.
Somewhere in that first year of staying home, I discovered something I hadn’t expected: a little world.
Not a small world — a little one. There’s a difference. Small feels limited. Little feels intimate, intentional, full of detail you’d miss if you were moving too fast.
At toddler eye level, everything changes. The bugs weren’t crawling across the patio anymore — they were extending an invitation. The dandelions weren’t weeds — they were gifts, picked with full sincerity for sick friends and family, offered with the kind of generosity that doesn’t yet know it’s supposed to be embarrassed by a fistful of wildflowers.
Lucy and Gemma taught me how to look again. How to crouch down, slow down, and let something small be the whole world for a moment. Wonder, it turns out, isn’t something you age out of. It’s something you get rushed out of.
That little world found its way into the studio.
You can see it in my current pieces — a new sense of whimsy that wasn’t there before. Something rounder, softer, more curious. Forms that feel like they’re leaning in rather than standing apart. I’m not sure I could have made them before motherhood. I’m not sure I was looking closely enough.
As an artist, becoming a mother felt seismic. The long, luxurious blocks of studio time disappeared. What replaced them was something smaller and more intentional — a practice built around accountability, around showing up in the margins of a full life. My work now reflects that. It reflects our little world, and the parents who are striving to be present in theirs — and maybe escape into something beautiful for a moment.
If that’s you, you’re in the right place.