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In this new work, I use metaphors of fire to articulate the complex interplay of intense delight and difficulties involved in raising children. In Project Management terms, Scope Creep refers to the undefined and uncontrolled expansion of a project’s scope, usually due to a constant and unpredictable change in the client’s requirements. In like manner, the range of responsibilities in early parenting, specifically in the modern age, is profoundly vast and dynamic. And yet the constant challenges and absurdities of this position are grounded in joy, wonder, and unconditional love. I explore these varied aspects through allegorical narratives that blend personal iconography with conventional symbols. These are delicately rendered, figurative paintings that depict intimate dramas unfolding against the backdrop of obscure landscapes. The image of fire repeats itself, morphing as it takes new meaning in each painting, to address the various points of friction, sublimity, warmth, and transformation that are intrinsic to the process of parenting.

Fire has a long, multi-cultural history of signifying an array of phenomenon, ranging from the mundane to the majestic. On one hand, fire cooks the meager meal and warms the modest home. On the other hand, it catalyzes technological advancement and moves the weight of entire civilizations. It is the effulgence of festivity and celebration while also being the very literal torch of communal hatred. It has been associated with suffering, material as well as spiritual purification, love, passion, judgment, hope, and comfort among other things. This diverse interpretive scope makes fire an apt symbol for a discourse on the poetics of parenting. After all, the stewardship of another soul’s emotional, physical, intellectual, spiritual, moral, and social well-being is not only an all-consuming fire but also one that refines one’s selfhood by constantly purging the natural instinct to love oneself above another.

I draw primarily from my daily experiences as a homeschooling mother of two. My visual vocabulary is inevitably also accented by the cross-cultural dimensions of my life as a Christian immigrant from India. These narratives not only capture the personal and idiosyncratic but also the commonalities that bind the collective phenomena of parenting. They invite the viewer to pause and contemplate the complex landscape of everyday domesticity to find within it, moments of truth, beauty, and mystery.