peevish mama

Doctor Dash’s sister, my sis-in-law, Mamartiste – also known out in the world as Claudette Lambert Peterson, is an artist/illustrator. I have admired her work for exactly as long as I have known Dash. I remember looking at a painting of Albert Einstein in his room when we met senior year of college and loving the fact that he sat in a floating chair and was surrounded by winking stars. It’s lovely.

Mamartiste has always worked as an artist, even in the busiest bleary-eyed times of raising her three girls. If she wasn’t creating for the outside world, she was creating for the people she loves. Recently Dash and I received a set of the most intricate and beautiful drawings of dragon flies and moths for our 40th birthdays. They are absolutely stunning and to me, speak so much of her generous artistic spirit. The detail is breathtaking – I can’t even begin to imagine how long she spent on these, how many delicate, painstaking, loving hours. There is no quick for Mamartiste, no half way. WE LOVE.

Her girls are growing and so is she as an artist. She recently pulled together a very beautiful website featuring her work, which I’d like to share with you. We all struggle with finding time in the day to do what we want to do, because contrary to popular belief, you don’t actually end up with all that much extra time on your hands when  your kids go to school. School hours are subject to different laws of time, it seems, than regular hours. At least for the mamas. And for a creative mama, like Mamartiste, who can’t rush inspiration, can’t rush the quiet she needs to create, it can be quite a challenge. But art is her love, it is inside of her and lucky for all of us, she continues to press on.