Mommy and Me Portraits

We’re immensely grateful for all our clients and feel especially blessed when they share their experiences. Christina recently expressed her heartfelt appreciation for her “Mommy and Me” portrait session with her daughters. Her words truly reflect the joy and special bond captured during their time with us. We are thankful to have been a part of their memorable day and to have helped create lasting memories for such a wonderful family.

Shared with permission from Christina’s Facebook wall:

“Thank you Funmi and Adrian for sticking with me and cheering me up on a very moody and smoky day.

When I was more active as an event designer and interior decorator, I got used to having my picture taken every couple weeks. Ongoing gala promo, magazine editorials, and morning news appearances, often times with hair and makeup professionally done, and high-end outfits and jewellery styled and sponsored. (I still dream about the $1000+ lurex Balmain sweater I wore to a fashion show.)

While I’m still doing events and spaces for select clients, and was up for a national event award last year, I’ve pared back my client load significantly due to ongoing personal and family health challenges, caregiving responsibilities, and the joy of producing my own ideas within my fine art practice vs. community-based high concept galas.

In the time since the pandemic started, more has happened for me art-wise personally than over a decade of event design, but I wouldn’t change a thing.

Working with committees and teams reinforced in me: the value of collaboration, how building a network of like-minded experts levels up the entire project and people, problem solving under pressure given an immovable deadline, discipline and craftspersonship in the workshop and studio, and an immutable belief that an ideal 3rd option is always around the corner with a little shift in perspective.

I began painting again following the births of my children, partly from a need to produce something more permanent and intuitive, that wouldn’t come down in 3 days and that I had complete freedom to share with the wider world.

Similarly to how artful weddings led to homes, corporate events, fundraising galas, and festivals, painting has evolved into miniatures, dollhouses, large-scale conceptual installations, photo essays, performances in the wilderness, video, writing, poetry, and more.

I’ve never been the best at choosing just one thing, but I know now that part of my magic is bringing disparate and sometimes clanging voices together into a harmonious whole.

In the past 4 years, I’ve had my photos and writing published in an anthology, written a column for my community paper, exhibited across Canada, volunteered for several organizations close to my heart, and more.

The day this photo was shot, I almost called Funmi and Adrian to cancel. It was hot and smoky, I was sweaty and fatigued from not being able to breathe all day, my house and yard were a disaster, and I was heartbroken at the breakdown of a long friendship. I even snipped unfairly at Adrian when I usually find his dry British humour gut-achingly hilarious.

Funmi led me on a little walk around my own garden while we chatted about life. I think right before this picture was taken, I’d been crying into the 3rd tissue of the afternoon. But she was persistent, and gentle, and eventually she coaxed a smile and a laugh from me that was entirely genuine, and that made me cry even more just at the feeling of happiness.

In most families, one person is the documentarian, and in mine that is usually me. I do appreciate a candid phone snap as much as the next person, but I also love a skillfully composed, well-considered photo. It’s also nice to look back from time to time and see how my family and me have changed over time.

Thank you, Funmi and Adrian, for that day, for capturing this and many other images of me and my kids, and for ensuring that (for one more year, at least) this Mom stays in the picture.”