The Inside Joke
This is my latest artwork, Mommy's Empty Basket, created using the gel plate method and painted with acrylics and inks. As part of my yearly tradition, every Halloween season I create work that ranges from lighthearted cartoons to pieces that reach into darker themes. This particular painting belongs in the latter category, exploring complex and often unspoken realities about modern motherhood. It carries within it an inside joke for those who understand, yet at its core it is a social commentary on shifting gender roles and the growing pressures of contemporary life.
The piece reflects on the ways financial burdens have altered the traditional family structure and how cultural expectations continue to press on women from all sides. Delayed childbirth, whether by choice or necessity, brings with it physical, emotional, and medical strain. For some, the act of having a child becomes less about nurturing life and more about fulfilling a checklist imposed by society. Too often, these decisions lead to fractured families, abandonment, or regrets that echo through years. In countless conversations, I have heard mothers wrestle with these choices, some wishing they had started sooner, others admitting they would not have chosen motherhood at all, and still others haunted by the realization that personal ambition came at the cost of family.
Mommy's Empty Basket, created in flat but iridescent maroon, pale green, and skeletal bone white, shows a feminine skeleton holding a richly colored maroon baby carrier that is as empty as the skeletal figure itself. It is a haunting image and one that I hope sparks conversation. For those of you who see the deeper layers of this painting and the inside joke, it becomes a poignant punchline that offers no laughter and instead a sad portrayal as hollow as both the skeleton and the basket.
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