V. Pencil, 2023.
In the summer of 2023, I decided to make an art piece of my then-two-year old niece. Since she was born, I have had the great pleasure of seeing her grow up before my eyes. It has made me grateful, but it’s also made me realize just how quickly time goes on. I felt compelled to somehow capture her essence – her youthfulness, innocence, joy, and curiosity.
As I wrote in a letter after completing this drawing: Today she has this smile, these tiny hands, and all of her particular mannerisms. Tomorrow she will evolve in magical ways – picking up new habits, developing new tastes, and uttering new phrases that make us wonder where the time is going.
This drawing could never capture one iota of her true spirit or the joy that she brings us, but my intent was to create something to help remember her as she was at this moment in time.
Kahlil Gibran beautifully captured the essence of these thoughts in The Prophet:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.