Placenta Paintings
Custom watercolors to honor your full experience
As humans, creativity and ritual are core to making meaning.
They help us integrate and honor, whether it is grief, joy, or more likely— a muddied swirl.
This is what a placenta painting offers.
I paint recently-birthed placentas, placentas from decades ago, placentas associated with loss, or even your very own you were tethered to in your mother’s womb.
Each painting is uniquely inspired by your story, in your own words. This allows emergent creativity to commemorate and re-imagine the placenta in surprising, beautiful, and healing ways. Each painting is a visual offering that honors the magical, crucial, + fleeting work done by your placenta + you.
How we collaborate
Get in touch to begin. I will share more about the process + initiate a connection to learn more about you + your story over email, phone, or video, in whatever ways feel most supportive.
I hold space for your story with loving care + attention. I meditate + reflect deeply over many weeks, channeling your story into the unique colors, shapes, + form of your abstract but very personalized painting.
Our interchange plus your painting offer a powerful + unique witnessing. The intention is that you are seen, held, + whole. Paintings are typically 12 x 16” 100% heavy cotton paper with watercolor + mixed media, but can vary in size + style by request, + depending on what your story asks.
Origin story
I started painting placentas after the birth of my son, as an effort to reconcile with my own placenta. At 36 weeks, my body was already shutting down in reaction to it, triggering HELLP Syndrome and requiring an urgent, pre-term delivery.
As I healed + my son grew, I reflected on the work my placenta had done to bring him safely to me earthside + yet the danger it had put us both in.
Watercolor painting became an emergent + therapeutic way of reconciling that while enabling me to honor my experience in its vast + beautiful complexity.
Read more of my writing on pregnancy + postpartum.
View full gallery of placenta paintings.
"Portal, portal, portal," watercolor + breastmilk (2023).
Watermelon sugar; watercolor, gems, googly eyes
An Iconic Sister; watercolor, glitter, googly eye, public gaze
My Grandmother's Placenta; watercolor, oil pastel, placenta, glitter, sequins, googly eye
Another good creature; water color, oil pastel, breast milk, googly eye
Everything; watercolor, oil pastel, breast milk, sequins
Another good one 3; watercolor
Everything 4; watercolor, sequins
Blood citrus; watercolor, oil pastel, glitter
A Party; watercolor, googly eye, distraction
Everything in pieces; watercolor, breast milk, oil pastel
Everything in pieces 3; watercolor, oil pastel, breastmilk, gold leaf, googly eye
Everything in pieces 2; watercolor, oil pastel, breastmilk
Thank you and good job, girl; water color, breast milk
Another good one; watercolor
Another good one 2, watercolor, breast milk
Everything in pieces 4; Watercolor, oil pastel, breastmilk, glitter
A Good Creature; watercolor, oil pastel, googly eye
Everything 2; water color, breast milk, googly eye
A good creature 3; watercolor & googly eyes
Another good one, 7; watercolor, breast milk, gold leaf
Desert sun; watercolor, oil pastel, desert sun
Mine All Mine; watercolor, oil pastel, sequins + glitter; googly eyes
Sharon Tate's placenta
"A Rogue Queen"
For Stephanie part 1
For Stephanie part 2
"Evolution"
Everything 3; watercolor, oil pastel, breast milk, gems
Another good one 4; watercolor
Another good one 5; watercolor
Another good one 6; watercolor
Another one, a mess up, still good; watercolor, googly eye, black X
A good creature 2; watercolor, oil pastel, sequin, googly eye
What might be; watercolor
My liver, made it; watercolor, breastmilk
My kidney (left? right?); watercolor, breastmilk
DNA Strands; watercolor, oil pastel
Gets the job done; watercolor
What might be 2; watercolor, oil pastel, breast milk
Portal, portal, portal; watercolor, breastmilk
The swelling; watercolor
The Amazing Placenta
The placenta is a magical, mysterious, + ephemeral organ — the only one humans can grow, discard, + grow again. It exists only temporarily, developing soon after conception.
During that time it plays the crucial role of several organs, providing complete nourishment + protection for a growing pregnancy.
We all have one (or more), whether we ourselves were tethered to it in utero, or we grew it inside our womb during a pregnancy (that resulted in a live birth or not).
Each placenta is totally unique; It never existed before + never will again. Your placenta is a fractal representation of your unique, complex human experience.