In my last blog post, I mentioned that I would be introducing my new work joyfully. But when I sat down to write this, I realized that it’s a bit more complicated than that!
Which makes sense. Life is a beautiful journey, but to get to our joy, we sometimes have to wade through the weeds first.
So in this post, we’re going to start in the w e e d s.
After losing my vision for a year and a half, I wasn’t sure when—or even if—I’d ever paint again. My eyes were still iffy when it came to color, and my first few attempts at mixing paint were disheartening. I had always been great at color matching, and now? Psshh. Bloody disaster. Not only that, but for the fist time in 14 years, I had zero ideas. I didn’t know what to paint. Nothing stood out.
I tried taking on a pet portrait commission—it didn’t click.
I was asked to write an article about gouache, but it required a step-by-step walkthrough of my painting process… and my eyes refused to focus.
I was completely blocked.
It was a bleak time.
Simon suggested I paint something I loved. Which raised a bigger question… What do I love?
I had painted animals for 14 years (longer if we count all the time I spent drawing and painting animals before making it into a business). And frankly? There was no way I was up for the task of painting fur again. Do you know how much detail goes into rendering hair? The time involved? Talk about an easy way to piss off my eyes again. Like they hadn’t experienced enough trauma already.
So I leaned into experimenting. I went through a phase of trying little bit of everything to see if anything would stick:
I painted chickens. And an egg.
Somewhat amused by chickens, I explored other birds.
Then I gave up trying to paint at all and wrote two non-fiction children’s books.
I started writing poetry about plants.
Nothing felt right. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t love it either… and I’ve learned that when there’s that much resistance to an idea, it’s probably not the one for you. At least not right then.
Now’s probably a good moment to backtrack a bit. So we’re going back to 2023, but I promise that it’s relevant.
I’ve touched on this before, but when I couldn’t see it became almost impossible for me to leave the house on my own. And for someone like me, that was a hard pill to swallow! I love my freedom and I love quietly exploring. I tried a few times anyways, but most attempts ended with Simon having to come find me and guide me home. I walked in front of moving cars a couple of times trying to cross the street (by accident!) and taking the bus was out of the question. Without my sight, the world outside felt overwhelming. And dangerous.
So instead of venturing out into the world, I brought the world inside. And our flat slowly became a greenhouse.
Meet some of the plants that kept me company. Some even had names ( shout out to Marco Pothos, who was always plotting new ways to explore the length of the loft) and Rogelio the mint, who was the ultimate plant diva. Heaven forbid it go a day without water!
We had palms, spider plants, an (overly) eager pothos, and an absolute guzzler of a mint plant in the kitchen loft. In the bedroom, there was a yucca, peace lily, and a variety of succulents.
And it just grew from there.
Any plant that needed a home, no matter how sad or desperate it looked, was brought inside and nursed back to health. They were surprisingly easy to find too, because we conveniently lived behind a plant shop in Richmond. The owners often left struggling plants outside on the street either deeply discounted, or for someone to rescue. At one point, we bought a mossimo ball. It was one of the few plants we ever bought and for a ridiculous reason too: mossimo balls need movement to stay round. Since I couldn’t walk Abby anymore, I walked my new algae pet around the bottom floor of the flat instead. Her name was Mossy.
It was good for them, and for me. Taking care of them gave me a reason to get up in the morning. They were counting on me. And they served as a daily reminder that healing takes time. Regardless of how sad those plants looked at first, they flourished in the flat.
Fast forward to mid-2024: early spring in London.
Still hard-pressed for ideas, I turned back to my plants. At this point, they had grown into beasts… quite literally. They were all desperate for a new pot. And that? That was something I knew how to do. So I took them outside, one by one, and armed with a bag of soil and a collection of larger pots, I got to work.
And as soon as I pulled the spider plant from its pot, inspiration struck.
Thick white roots had taken on the shape of the pot and enormous rhizomes weaved every which way. I had never seen a rhizome before. I didn’t know what they were, but I loved them.
I told you the plants became beasts! The kitchen loft was a perfect greenhouse environment, and the resulting plants? Absolute monsters.
Next came the pothos: its roots were thin and beige.
Then the snake plant: its roots were red.
Each plant had a completely different root structure.
And with each repotting, the idea grew.
Humans and plants were a lot more alike then I had realized.
The first thing we notice is their outer facade—their leaves, their blooms, and the shape of their pot. But underneath the soil is a whole other world we don’t get to see. We don’t really know what’s going on. Not until we dig. And repot.
And I thought, isn’t that true for people too?
In the year I couldn’t see, I looked the same. But I was a mess of emotions. Fear, grief, anger… I could keep going. And no one really knew what I was going through, unless I told them. Which I almost never did.
That’s true for most people too though, isn’t it? We see a carefully curated version of someone, but we rarely know what kind of burdens they’re carrying. It takes time, care, curiosity, and commitment to really get to know someone. And even then, we only know what they choose to share with us.
The plants helped me through the most tumultuous year of my life, gently reminding me that everything moves in seasons. Even grief and pain.
And afterward, when I thought I had learned everything I needed to learn from my vision fiasco, they were still showing up and laying another big obvious lesson on me. I didn’t need to look far for creative inspiration. I could reflect and transform what I had been through into something beautiful. And profound.
I named the new collection We All Have Weird Roots and I pulled from my experience painting Unusual Animal Messages to help guide me through the process of creating different textures and layers for the plants and their roots. I chose to do it through the lens of a plant pot turned X-ray, to remind the viewer to look deeper for meaning, beyond what we can see on the surface. That’s true for just about everything too: life, friendships, emotions, and ourselves.
The first paintings I made were very constricted. I was still unsure about diving into color and I was feeling timid about painting again. My initial palettes were more muted than my other work. But as I moved forward, my sense of color returned, along with my sense of joy when painting. I started discovering new possibilities and ways of working, and my work started to get bolder.
One of my first “plant root” paintings. I was trying to get comfortable with color again, so I went with a muted yellow, pink, and soft gray for the background. Even the leaves are toned down—I accidentally ended up with a sage green while mixing my palette, but it worked out perfectly.
I had finally found my creative joy again, which turned into an abundance of ideas, which turned into playing, which led to an incredible influx of opportunities.
For the current moment, I’ve moved back to California. And during this transitional phase I’ve had to put any larger works on hold. There’s a lot of new moving parts!
That being said, I have so much more to share about everything else I’ve been working on.
But again—probably best saved for another post!
Talk soon,
x
Manda