I love you, goodnight.
Celebrating a Mother & Daughter’s 20th Adoption Anniversary
Karina commissioned this piece as a gift to her mom. They celebrate the anniversary every year. Adopted from Russia, Karina wanted to include some Russian themes that were special to her, like the matryoshka dolls, and the St. Basil Church in Moscow that they had visited together.
Reading more about matryoshkas, I learned that one of the themes or meanings is 'from generation to generation', and the lineage of mother-daughter-mother-daughter.
Depending on how it's counted, there are 20 or more "nestings" in the piece starting with the pink hearts in the center, going all the way out to the right corner for 20 years, and many more to come. Layers upon layers of love. The fruit reflects how as the years go on, new fruit grows in the relationship.
In the juxtaposition of the younger and older versions of themselves, mother and daughter are also both nesting in each other, depending on which side of the piece you are looking at.
The text on the top right scribes what they would always say before bed: "I love you, goodnight."
Each piece offers me my own personal connection. For this one, it was that just under a year after my mom passed away, their relationship started. Listening to Karina's stories, it's powerful imagining our lives existing in parallel these 20 years later, our paths crossing only now.
Community Care
A percentage of the profits from this piece was donated to Urgent Action Fund for Women’s Human Rights, an organization vetted by the Obama Foundation, and specifically to their fund for Ukraine.
About Urgent Action Fund’s fund for Ukraine: UAF is committed to supporting women, trans, and nonbinary activists on the ground in and surrounding Ukraine by providing flexible funding and security support. Learn More.