New Painting: "Forces at Play"

"Forces at Play," 24x30", oil on linen (2024-2026)

This was one of the first paintings I started as I was moving into my brand new basement studio in October 2024, after seven months of construction. That year had been a challenge, to say the least.

My son was struggling with behavioral issues at school, and throughout the summer—after barely completing kindergarten—we had a steady rotation of behavioral therapists coming and going from our home every afternoon. Three hours a day. Five days a week. The sounds of his meltdowns, or moments of joy and play, layered over the constant hammering and construction noise, made for one of the most difficult working environments I’ve ever experienced. My studio was crammed into our dining room. There were no doors. No blockades. Constant interruptions.

So when I finally moved everything into my studio, I was chomping at the bit to get started on new work. I wanted BIG paintings. I wanted to stretch out, feel the space, enjoy having legroom again.

And yet—I was still recovering from a long and difficult season. Not even recovering, really. I was still in it.

That summer, I watched Everett sit at the dining room table, which was perpetually covered in his projects and hobbies. There was never any room for plates—we couldn’t sit and eat at the table because every square inch was occupied with paper, markers, globes, stickers, Legos, and bingo cards. But there were moments when he would look up from whatever he was immersed in, and his expression stopped me cold. It was all-encompassing love, joy, obsession. A whole universe contained in a single look. With the light streaming in through the glass doors, his face glowed with an almost otherworldly clarity.

I knew immediately: that was what I wanted to paint next.

I had already painted him as a wild thing. Now it was time to paint him in this next phase—more conscious of the world around him, equally absorbed in his outward fascinations (world geography, the solar system) and the inward world swirling inside that remarkable brain of his. I knew I didn’t want this painting to be about what makes him different. I wanted to hone in on what makes him gifted. On what makes him him.

This is Everett's drawing of the solar system, which I eventually incorporated into the painting.
Here you can see he was interested in painting the Kuipur Belt, and the dwarf planet, "The Goblin."
I was struck by his interest in "outliers," given that he might be considered one himself.

I designed the painting with those thoughts in mind. It is quietly cosmic—both intimate and vast at the same time. Everett, though often fully immersed in his own world, looks up from his play and meets us directly in the eyes. The world—and our world—is within his reach. The objects around him—the stars, the globe, the markers, papers, and paper airplanes—feel suspended in time and space, as if governed by a kind of personal physics.

But because I was still dealing with constant interruption, ongoing school struggles as Everett entered first grade, and the difficulty of returning to work after a long stretch away, the painting fought me from the start. I questioned whether I even remembered what it felt like to be in a true flow state. I spent hours painting stars, reworking his expression, rendering tiny place names on the globe with my smallest brushes. I tried to make it work.

How it started. My original design was very high-key.

I had hoped to enter the painting in the 2025 Portrait Society of America International Competition. I shared it with a small group of women artists I trust deeply. They were enthusiastic—but one of them gently suggested that the painting would be stronger if I shifted from a light background to a dark one. The moment she said it, I knew she was right. And my heart sank.

I simply didn’t have the bandwidth to make such a drastic change, especially with the deadline looming and my solo show already on the horizon. So I reluctantly shelved the painting. And there it sat—waiting in the wings—for eleven months.

It turned out to be a gift.

At that point, I couldn’t see the painting through anything but a subjective lens. Just a couple of weeks after setting it aside, Everett was asked to leave his school, with the threat of expulsion if we didn’t pull him out. We were heartbroken. We pulled both kids mid-year and began the search for new schools. Cecelia found a place quickly—my brave girl stepped right in and made friends almost immediately. Everett’s path was slower.

He stayed home with me for a month, and during that time I had the dark thought: What was I thinking, committing to a solo show? Autism moms don’t get to have spotlight moments. We don’t get to have successful careers.

That kind of thinking had to end if I was going to keep painting. So I painted anyway—often through grit rather than flow.

Eventually, Everett was given a place at a public school just ten minutes from our house, with a teacher I will be forever grateful for. She understood him immediately. She saw him. She considered him an asset to her classroom, not an inconvenience. And in that environment, he was able to thrive.

In the spring (May 2025), the Portrait Society accepted a different painting of mine, "The King of the Wild Things" (also of Everett!) into their International Competition and it placed in the top ten, earning 5th place overall. I couldn't have been more thrilled!

By June, my shoulders began to relax. My jaw unclenched. I could finally see the world through eyes that weren’t stuck in survival mode. And that’s when the paintings began to get better.

Fast forward to December 2025. Winter break. My show was a success. The kids were home. Everett had just completed the first half of second grade—a massive win. And I pulled this painting back out.

I was finally ready.

I repainted almost every square inch. The background, his face, the globe, the foreground—everything was reconsidered. I took to heart something I had read in Scarcity Brain by Michael Easter, about the power of removing and simplifying, rather than constantly adding. I eliminated an entire sheet of paper in the foreground. I added paper airplanes to reflect Everett’s most current obsession and to help guide the eye through the composition. The light/dark pattern strengthened immediately.

I still wanted to include his drawings of the solar system, but instead of suspending them illustratively in the air, I grounded them on a piece of paper in the foreground. I considered giving him a halo, but decided my child is no angel or messiah figure—his expression is enough. I subtly added constellations that would have been visible on the night he was born. I entered the painting deliberately, practicing a level of restraint that hasn’t always been present in my earlier work.

This may be the profound lesson I’ve been learning as an artist lately: restraint and discipline trump raw passion. Passion must be tempered. 

Then there was the title.

I originally planned to call it In His Own Time and Space, but that felt too explanatory, too tied to his autism. I wanted the painting to speak instead about potential—about the gift he brings to the world simply by being a curious, engaged participant in it. So I chose Forces at Play.

I hope you enjoy this painting. My son may not be destined to be an artist (there's plenty of time to find out!), but he will bring something extraordinary into this world. He already has. He has opened my heart and mind to levels of learning and growth I never could have imagined.