Jordan Casteel Instagram – Honestly, it’s hard to believe “Covering the holes in our walls with sunflowers” is opening this Wednesday, November 5th at @caseykaplangallery
… this self portrait was imagined over a year ago… the original iteration in my head was going to be a portrait of me holding the child we’ve been journeying towards for nearly 5 years. A finale of the musings and deep manifestations we’ve been longing for.
As life does, it didn’t happen the way I hoped, we had more to grieve and thus the grappling of whether or not to still make the portrait loomed large… The holes in the walls seemingly grew and multiplied… but the reality is I’ve always said “I have not yet had the privilege of being a mother, but the process of painting, loving, nurturing, pruning, pouring into and letting go is something I imagine it would be like.” From a seed a sunflower will grow…
The day I finished this portrait we heard a heartbeat for the first time. It took:
1 lupus diagnosis at 18
1 doc who said it was never possible
Years on methotrexate
2 egg retrievals
2 surrogates
2 agencies
6 transfers
1 egg donor
5 years dreaming
Our baby will bloom April 2026 — after complete surrender and a long winter. We have the best surrogate turned friend, we ended up with an egg donor, and we have grieving still to do as we continue to honor the potentials and the realities. Now that we are here, I see it all so clearly — nothing feels more fitting than our flower being grown in a community garden.
This show holds it all for me. It’s only right that I quite literally stay in the room while you see it. That you see the seedlings and the blooms. That you see me.
•••
Title from Alice Walker, from In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens
[Jordan, oil on canvas, 94 x 80 inches, 2025] | Posted on 03/Nov/2025 05:41:00
