Bonnie Rose: Navigating creativity and motherhood

For me, art has helped me so much as a mother who daily, misses her children. In the beginning years after our divorce, art kept me alive and sane. I would create photo albums for my children and fill every hour with creative things I could do for my two beautiful girls.

Now I am coming into my own as an artist, and love sharing my art with my children and with the world.

They see me blossoming and are so proud of me, their mother. They know all the pain we all endured years ago, and we all are happy now. So much happier.

I will always need to be creative. I will always need to express myself through art, through my writings. It’s what makes me, me. I strongly believe as women, we often live our lives being everything to everyone, and somewhere along the way, we lose ourselves. We struggle. We want more for ourselves, but are often scared to express our wishes, because we don’t want to feel selfish. I remind myself of this. No one can make me feel badly about myself without my permission. This is true.

It’s a choice.
Yes, our families and our children give us unending joy.
That goes without saying.

But in the quiet times, we must learn to give ourselves that joy.
Make ourselves happy.

As a mother who spends days and weeks without seeing the smiles of her children, I’ve learned to be comfortable in my own skin. To look around, and give myself snippets of joy.

Joy is everywhere.
We all need to open our eyes and look harder to see it hiding.
It’s there.
It’s there.

Joy.

You can read more about my life and art on my blog. I am a prolific blogger — meaning there is always something new and wonderful to share every day. Please come visit my Etsy shop for unique artist supplies, original art, and graphically designed greeting cards. A portfolio of my creations can be found on my Flickr page here. You can find me on Facebook here. Custom art and card design orders are always welcome! Wishing you all a fabulous New Year filled with dreams come true!