I’m always stumped with what to get my mom for Christmas, her birthday, Mother’s Day. The best gift I ever got her was a knife. She loves that thing. I think the tickets to Avenue Q was a close a second.

There are a few other gifts I’ve gotten her over the years that have been a big hit, particularly a portrait of our entire extended family – brothers, uncles, aunts, cousins, grandparents, kids, nephews, nieces – all rendered as South Park characters.

36" x 12" acrylic on canvas

Thinking in that vein this year, which has been the most productive of my artistic life, I made a simple family family portrait of my parents and brothers made to look like LEGO people.

I got the idea after reading Cult of LEGO, and making a LEGO Foogos in the past few months. It’s going in her dining room, and the holidays (Christmas, my birthday – TODAY – and an impending New Year’s party) have/will see(n) a lot of folks pass through that kitchen. It’s both a great and terrible thing when scores of people want to commission you to paint them something. It all boils down to four words: Show. Me. The. Money.

Unless you’re my mom.