06/29/2026
RIP Mom aka Anne Hudgeon
September 16, 1936 - May 17, 2026
What do I say about a relationship that shaped my whole life?
💔I love you. I miss you. You inspire me.
I watched you creating for as long as I can remember. Thank you for showing me the way, even when I wasn’t the least bit interested. Always working with your hands, and your heart. Home cooked meals, HOME making generally, painting walls (I loved that you painted hot pink and baby blue over the super lame ballerina wall paper in my room when I was tomboyish and 10) sewing, crocheting, cake decorating, home decorating, (even in our humble old fashioned prairie home there was original art on the walls painted by your sister and a lovely antique bottle collection) And then there was your baking, which everyone now acknowledges as an art form. yum yum.
❤️ You thought to save my early childhood scrapbooks...almost as though you knew someday they'd be inspiring to me, at the very least I would see very clearly that I always loved colour, from the crayoned orange doors and purple cars in my child art. Who knew I'd grow up to pursue art, right?
Thank you.
❤️ You were a big fan of my art, even though you could never actually say that out loud to me. I knew because you bought my art to gift to friends and you loved to be around at studio tour. I think your homemade butter tarts were a bigger draw than my art the first few years in my own studio.
You were also a critic, but I now know it's because you were a perfectionist and I believe you thought by critiquing my art first you could help keep me "safe" from being critiqued in a bigger, harsher way.
My very first mixed media paintings had images of you in the mix, some of which I'm sharing here. I'm not really sure what you thought of these art pieces, because like I said, it wasn't easy to know with you.. Except when you didn't like something...then it was obvious. And why did I chose “little you” as the subject of my very first forays until mixed media painting? Clearly I was working on some mother/daughter dynamics at the time…or maybe always?
🌸 In these young images of you that I used in my art, I see a little girl who wants to get it right, to please her own mom, and to do well.
A few years ago I asked you what you would have chosen for your life if you'd have had every option, and you said you'd have been an artist of some sort. I was a little surprised. Not because you didn't have the skills or talent for it...but I thought you'd chose a career of another sort, like your professional daughters in law or nieces or friends, because you often remarked about them and how “they made good money".
❤️ I also have your "art portolio" from grade 5, and grade 9 that you'd saved for all those years, pretty much 80 years! Since you were 9 or 10.
Clearly your early art was meaningful to you, maybe that’s why you saved some of mine too? I’m grateful to be the custodian of them, thank you.
Only in the last dozen years or so have these awarenesses fallen into place for me, these new understandings of you.
❤️ There's no doubt in my mind that I learned a lot about creativity through you, through osmosis, even though I resisted almost all of it at the time. As you know, from 10 or so till almost 40 I didn't do anything creative. This painful gap forms the basis of my book.
If I could add to my book now, I’d thank you even more than in the back pages.
I learned so much from you, even the harder stuff that you didn’t know you were teaching. Through the rocky times of our relating, I had to learn about myself so I could be more empowered in relationship to you. And as I heard and understood more about your early life and some of the trauma of it I could be so much more compassionate towards you.
Maybe I didn't pursue anything in the creative realms for so long partly because I knew I'd never live up to your high standards? Or maybe because I didn't believe I had the skills or talent.
You def had high standards in the quality of your creations, and I love that. I work differently, as you know. I do fine work, but not perfect. And I definitely know that my late bloomer timing was all meant to be, because it’s such an important part of my development as an artist.
🥰 Do you remember the time when you finished my sewing project for grade 7 Home Economics class? My apron was such a mess, there was no way you’d let me hand it in. And I didn’t care about that project at all. Thank you for caring Mom. I'm still a messy "seamstress" as you know...and that's ok. I think of you whenever I'm sewing, I still use your old machine.
This probably sounds all hodge podge and not coherent because how to sum up a mother / daughter relationship in a single social media post? It’s not possible.
💔 I know we broke each other’s hearts from time to time over the many years, and we found ways to come back together. Certainly I always felt your support, even when you couldn’t verbalize it, which was pretty much always.
So I’ll end here, with deep and endless gratitude to you Mom. For the lovely easy parts and the very hard parts. Thank you for the endless ways you supported and loved me all through my life.
❤️ You were my first teacher, my first inspiration and my first muse.
Almost all kids want to dedicate their early creations to their mom, and I’m no different. I have many of the cards and art I made for you because you saved them for me.
Thank you, I love you, thank you, I love you.
❤️ Rest in peace Mom ❤️
Love, Tammy
p.s. i think of the line from the song by Lulu in "to Sir, with Love" movie..."how do you thank someone who has taken you from crayons to perfume? it isn't easy but I'll try"....
