The Story Behind the Cover – Late Summer 2022

Erin Darcy is the illustrator behind our beautiful Late Summer cover. Erin is a self-taught artist and activist. Inspired by women and children, Erin’s paintings often reflect the taboo subjects of miscarriage, grief, mother loss, abortion, depression, and radical self-love. edarcydesign.com

Erin shares the story behind the cover…

As a child, it felt to me that art had the power to hold the memories happening right in front of it. Our moments as a family sealed into the images displayed on the walls, taken down and moved house to house. These images, decorating the landscape of my life, were a constant throughout my childhood, awakening memories long forgotten when revisited, like an old friend.

It was in my third pregnancy, a toddler on hip and a child running around, that I knew I wanted to paint a piece that could be the keeper of the scene. A talisman of sorts that would look over the living room, the place I’d birthed our son and, under her gaze, where I’d birth my daughter.

We’ve since moved from the house where two of my children were born. The house that holds our Christmas mornings and movie nights. The house that holds our story of growing into a family, where children learned to crawl, walk, ride bikes. We danced and napped and laughed and lay sleepless nights under the watchful presence of art. And when we had to say goodbye to the house that held so much of our lives, making a home in our new space was easier once I’d hung up my painting, our constant presence adorning the walls, our keeper of memories.

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