Siren's Stork Visit

SHE'S HERE - and she came her own way.

Jun 29, 2026

I said I’d be back the following week if I didn’t give birth. Alas, I did.

I know this Substack is supposed to be about art, and I promise we’ll get to the art. But I’d be remiss not to acknowledge the baby-sized elephant in the room.

On March 24th I was induced at 39 weeks, labored for 14 hours, and somehow found myself in an operating room listening to Taylor Swift’s Enchanted as the doctors worked quickly to bring my daughter into the world safely.

If I am going to be honest, it wasn’t the birth I had imagined. I’d built a version of the experience in my head, and when everything changed, I quietly convinced myself I had somehow failed. Healing from that disappointment took almost as much work as healing from the surgery itself. I felt unimaginably grateful for our healthy daughter while simultaneously grieving the loss of agency over one of the biggest moments of my life.

It turned out to be my first lesson in motherhood. No matter how much you prepare, children have a remarkable way of rewriting the plan before they’ve even arrived.

Naturally, I responded in the only way I know how. Eleven days postpartum, I put on a pair of heels and went to the Matisse opening at Acquavella. Was it medically advisable? Probably not. Did standing in front of extraordinary paintings remind me that beauty still exists when your world has been turned upside down? Absolutely.

Throughout postpartum, art has become less of an escape than a companion. It reminded me that the highs and lows of being human are never entirely ours alone, and that artists have always tried to make sense of joy, grief, uncertainty, and transformation through creativity. Becoming a mother has also changed the questions I find myself asking. I think less about careers and markets and more about legacy, what artists leave behind, why we feel compelled to make things, and what it means as a collector to foster ownership through generations.

I’m excited to be back. I have new conversations planned, remarkable artists to introduce you to, and, perhaps inevitably, a slightly different perspective than the one I left with three months ago.

In honor of my beautiful Rose, here are some pieces that show how this stunning, but prickly flower, has captivated artists throughout history.