20x20 resin coated

When I was a little girl my Aunt had an all-white long-haired Persian cat named Sadie. There was nothing in life I wanted more than an all-white fluffy cat of my own. Sadie never liked me. Probably because I pet her tail backward to see what would happen. When I was five, my uncle had returned from a trip to Australia. He had brought me a gray and brown koala puppet. Her ears were fluffy white just like Sadies tail, so I named her Sadie.  

Sadie the koala became my childhood companion. She went everywhere with me. Once Pretzel our dachshund got her and ripped up her nose. My grandfather did “surgery” on Sadie and sewed her black nose back together. He was always a hero and that’s only one example. I can still feel sitting intensely in his amber-lit kitchen, the smell of burnt coffee and peanut butter and toast. He always sat at the head of his kitchen. I was so afraid she wouldn’t be the same after she had been hurt. But my Grandfather was magic, and Sadie was even more important to me. She slept with me every night and I’d bring her to school in my backpack. She knew how awful school was. 

In my early 20s when my life got really crazy, everything I owned was thrown onto a curb in February on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago. I was so far gone it didn’t matter. I picked up a photo album of my daughter, a blue glass bowl, and walked away from all of it. Sadie was in that pile. 

I think there are layers of going to hell and getting out of hell alive that we are all required to experience each lifetime. I’ve always considered this specific lifetime advanced placement life. 

15 years after the Chicago in February drama - a lot of therapy, recovery, yoga, meditation, art and healing had happened. My then love interest moved to Las Vegas to try to see if we could be in a relationship together. We had already both known for half of a year that we were meant to be together. We met on a fluke for one day and he traveled around the world for a year - writing to me about each place he visited. He taught me that the world was an adventure to be seen and felt, and that anything in life is possible. Perth, Australia was the last place he traveled to before he moved to Las Vegas. 

Kevin and I had a connection like I had never experienced. He has this way of allowing me to always feel listened to,valuable, and safe. He has the most emotional intelligence I have ever seen in a person and tells the best, most animated stories. Those are my favorite things about him. 

When he finally moved here, he walked up to me in the airport. I was so nervous I was speechless. Under his left arm was a gray koala bear, with a giant black nose and fluffy white ears. I was so overwhelmed that I had no ability to explain. 

That was six years ago. Seeing my future husband walk up to me in an airport after a year apart - walking towards me to start our lives together holding a near replica of my childhood stuffed toy - completely by coincidence (I never told him about Sadie) - was like dumbfounded, overwhelmed, exuberant joy. But also a sparkling comfort and sweeping sense of movement. 

To me, those feelings are exactly what this painting looks, feels like and moves as. There are parts of ourselves that we think we will never get back, only for them to come strolling up to us - a gift within a gift - that we don’t see coming. 

This is a painting about joy and surprise. Everything about her is over the top and dramatic - a moment of perfection.