"Every aspect of raising children is both/and. Motherhood is chaotic and still, it moves too quickly and too slowly, it is joy-filled and it is charged with grief. Lately, I’m drawn to painting moments from my life that feel held together by this unsayable tension — like the way that being a mother has made me feel both expanded as a human being and, simultaneously, erased. Caregiving necessitates a stepping back from the world, a degree of social invisibility. For mothers in particular, the transition to parenthood often means a relinquishing of other selves and roles. Still, mothering has, paradoxically, expanded my imagination and my sense of self-efficacy. Painting gives me a place to explore the aspects of mothering that feel too complicated, confusing, and tender to speak. I am a mother striving to live consciously in an overwhelming world. I am drawn to painting both the chaos and mess of our house, and the sudden, unexpected moments of stillness that feel flooded with meaning and light. In 2009, I attended the Marchutz School of Art in Aix-en-Provence, France, where my work became heavily formally influenced by the Post-Impressionists and by meditation-like methods of observational painting. As a painter, I delight in both capturing moments from my daily life and endlessly experimenting with surface quality, color, and the interplay of space." Megan Klco Kellner is a Michigan-based artist, poet, and educator who explores what it means to live consciously through images of her home and family. She holds an MFA in Painting from Kendall College of Art & Design and a BFA from Truman State University. In 2009, she attended the Marchutz School of Art in France where she became deeply interested in observational painting and the manipulation of pictorial space. The mother of two, a through-line in Klco Kellner’s creative work has been a desire to stay doggedly present to the small miracles that comprise her daily sense of home. She is currently a Visiting Professor of Painting at Grand Valley State University.