Help Our Mom, Adriane, Create and Heal

Hello everyone!

Our mother, Adriane has spent her life bringing beauty into the world. She's a vibrant and passionate person who raised all three of her kids with heaps of art supplies, art books, and total generousity regarding the use of precious watercolor paper, canvas, and delicate paintbrushes (which sometimes ended up left in jars of sludge for weeks!).

Throughout our childhood, people came to our house and were instantly given freedom - and support - to create whatever they could imagine. I know she changed a lot of people's lives just by believing in them as artists.

Throughout this whole period of time, she was making art for herself and for the future, too - and that art is extraordinary. More about that in a minute.

Adriane's work can be seen throughout Idaho – from the vibrant childrens mural hung in 2009 in the St. Lukes Children's Hospital Oncology Center to the town mural in Marsing, ID where she raised the three of us. Her paintings hang in places of honor all over the world, from Beverly Hills to British Columbia to Paris, to the French Consulate General in Saigon. We hear regularly from people who acquired her pieces years ago and treasure them still.

Her art has always been her way of connecting, of telling stories, and of understanding the world.

For the past two years, she's been facing stage four colorectal cancer, which has now metastasized to her lungs. Cancer is a rough companion, but she is determined to complete her most ambitious and personal work yet: The Guardians.

This triptych of six-foot-tall canvases will be a meditation on protection and the unseen forces that sustain us. It will feature arching trees with gilt edges, whose roots grow from a vast mycelial network representing the interconnectedness of all life. The complex network of branches extend from sky through ground to connect to a massive underground lake which sustains the forest and helps guard our ecosphere. Encircling it all will be 126 symbols of protection drawn from world cultures and the people in her life– even antibodies, an allusion to the immunologic imbalance within the artist’s own body.

While our mom was reluctant to allow us to create this campaign, The Guardians is too important to her to leave unfinished. She is currently staying with our brother, Mark and his family in Seattle, while undergoing intensive chemotherapy. Given the realities of the American healthcare system, the financial burden on all of us has been significant, and this GoFundMe is intended to help with my mom’s living, artistic, and medical expenses, covering the things that aren't covered, which in a situation like this, add up.

She's very much still herself, and would love to hear from people! Here she is below, with us and with her grandchildren, a couple years ago!

If you know Adriane, you know her spirit: resilient, fierce in defense of her family, always full of light. We would be so grateful for any contribution that will help her complete this powerful work and help us ensure she has the care she needs.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for standing with us.