Simply to create, I decided to paint one thing every day and I started with cake.

No plans for the works on paper, painted with ease and allowable error and then a scribble signature, set it aside.

Creativity for the sake of creativity and I guess to spread the word about my suggestion others get creative in their own way and also, share a slice of cake or two with someone special on January 28th.

“Cake with your Mama Day”

began on a whim. I wasn’t especially sad and I’m not sure I really wanted cake. It just seemed fitting to eat cake on my mother’s birthday to make it less heavy and more happy.

My mama passed away two days before she was to turn 70 over ten years ago.

Before my daughter became a mama, we had cake one day downtown after work. It was the sweetest day.

Mama was a professional for many years and then, although not at all lucrative, she began to bake cakes for people, the lusciously decadent cakes only her family had known her for.

And something changed in her, I saw her stand before a red velvet cake about to be delivered and I saw love on her face.

Her countenance reflected the gift of being a maker of only something she could create.

Her cake business was art.

So, every year, now on the closest Saturday to January 30th, I invite others into the #cakewithyourmamaday and for the past couple of years, my dear friend Jeanne at Juniper in Ridge Spring, SC (a very cool and yummy place) joins me in promoting the celebration…the invitation to remember your mama or anyone who mama’s or has mama’d you.

Or anyone at all, together sharing.

Friends gather together and dip their forks into cake, conversations about life, love, hope and happiness happen over shared slices of cake.

Cake with Your Mama Day is more an invitation to joy than just a day of enjoying dessert.

So, if you follow me on Insta, you’ve seen I’m painting a cake a day as I’ve come to understand more why this day is special.

I believe my mama understands my desire to keep painting. She sees the sweet release achieved by making something as she saw it in her country kitchen pulling the pound cakes from the oven. She sees and is smiling down on me over a slice or two of cake.

I hope you’ll have cake on January 28th.

Share your photos with us all on #cakewithyourmamaday

Be creative.