When my 3rd son was born, I wanted to capture and freeze all my feelings of love, hope and wonder. Knowing how precious and fleeting these early days are, and how fast babies grow and change, I was determined to savor each moment, hold on to each emotion as long as possible, and immortalize each memory in the best way I know: with colors and paint.
Right after my son’s birth, the pandemic hit. Life turned inwards. We retreated into our own family bubble and while everything fell apart outside, we built a haven for ourselves inside. Painting was my sanity.
In the end, I painted 50 paintings, a handful of pieces for each month of my son’s first year of life. Each painting embodies him, his ever-changing personality, how he laughed and played, learned and developed, began to crawl, to walk, to run. To babble, then talk. Things he loved, places he went, things he experienced, how I felt with him. I passionately mixed colors to weave together my memories, my dreams, our experiences, and the ever present passage of time, while also embodying the full range of my emotions over the course of the year.
One day these paintings will be a gift to him. This year they’ve been a gift to me.
—Gayle Midnight, San Francisco, California 2020-2021