My daughter Sam

I’ve been struggling with how to write about one daughter and not the others.

I always tell the girls that I love them equally…but they don’t believe it.

They all claim to be my favorite.

Actually I suppose they’re right.

They’re all my favorite in different ways…

There…I have it covered.  (I can hear them now…”Mommmmm.”)

But this post is about my daughter Samantha.

Sam is in her first year of college with the plans of majoring in Studio Art, along with attaining a teaching certificate.

Sam is my second child.

My head in the clouds…skipping along through life singing little girl.

OK, not so little anymore.

But she has always had such a beautiful air of innocence and a genuine glow of happiness about her that you couldn’t help but smile when she was little.  She still does and we still do.

She was such a character when she was little…oh the stories I have…

One of my favorites is the time we were on our way to church and she announced from the backseat “I’m not wearing any underwear!”…of course in a little sing-song voice.

I held that little girls dress down tightly all the way through church.

She was 4…and innocent…?

And let me say this for my other daughters…”yes I do know – Sam is imperfect too”.  She is a teenager after all.  She has her moods, her times of trials, but she keeps moving forward and she prays.

That’s another thing I love about her…her faith.  It’s incredibly strong.  And if we were to talk about God’s love shining through someone…Sam would come to mind.

Which brings me to the purpose of this blog.  To brag about Samantha.  Pure and simple.

Samantha is showing her art in our local Ely Winter Festival Art Walk and I couldn’t resist sharing it with you.

She calls the three pieces “A Self-Portrait”.

The first is done in charcoal.

The second is a collage, made up of pieces of magazines.

The third is a recycled art piece made up of pop tabs.

Like my three girls, I can’t pick a favorite.  I love them all for different reasons.

The first because it is Sam.

It is a true self-portrait showing her beauty…

her sass…

and her innocence all at the same time.

The second because she has accomplished depth in the portrait with only scraps of magazines.  And because she uses words…words of women:  beauty, mind, inspired, sexy & confident, dream, curve, sophisticated, gorgeous, pray, serve, infinite, bold, and many more.  All words describing women…the things we do, our strengths, our fears, our downfalls and our loves (yes there’s even “Tiffany & Co.” – a girl can dream can’t she?).

The third because of how creative it is…and how much time she put into it.  There are approx. 3,000 pop tabs in this piece.  Sam made it during her senior year of high school while taking a college art class.  She literally painted every pop tab and THEN put them all together.  To me it is the height of creativity!

So this is my Sam.

In all her glory……

……and she never leaves the house without wearing underwear anymore.

I’m so proud of her.

Patty O