The woman you see in this picture is my mom.
Her name is Iryna.
She gave me my first art lessons, taught me to see beauty in everything, to always look at the world through the eyes of a child, no matter how old I am. She told me to listen to my heart. To never forsake my dreams.
"You have the whole universe inside of you," she would say. "Remember that."
She lived so much. She held mountains on her fragile shoulders, walked through the darkest nights, and never once allowed her heart to harden.
On April 17th, 2022, at 4:30 in the morning, she left her home in occupied Kherson, Ukraine.
She had about two hours to decide what to take. She drove through darkened fields and damaged roads without signs, risking being shot — Russian soldiers often fired on civilian vehicles, even during green corridors. She trusted the journey, crossing half the country to reach safety. I flew to Bucharest to meet her and brought her to Portugal.
New country. New language. Multiple physically demanding jobs. Her whole life was turned upside down in a matter of days, but she did not give up.
Little by little, she is claiming herself back.
There is a field behind her apartment where she walks her dogs every day. During the moist Mediterranean winters, it turns into a lush carpet of wildflowers and herbs. In summer, the earth cracks open and burns almost to the ground. And then, every winter, the flowers come back. She told me that watching this helped her heal. That it gave her hope: tender blooms would always return, even after the heaviest season.
I think of that field when I look at what she makes with her hands.
She started working with Czech glass beads during the pandemic. Tiny luminous beads, thread-thin wire — an art form that requires infinite patience. Little by little, she turned her rented apartment in Portugal into a flourishing garden again. Each flower sculpture takes hours to create, bead by bead, petal by petal. So much love and attention go into every piece.
Mom loves nature deeply, and her flowers are an ode to the beauty that surrounds us — flowers that will never wilt, never die.
I want her to feel safe.
Right now, there are two concrete things she needs beyond rent:
A used car — the area where she lives has no reliable public transportation. Buses are sparse and don't go near her workplace. A one-way Uber costs about her hourly wage. A car means independence, freedom of movement, and more opportunities.
A massage therapy training — she just enrolled in a $1,300 program that would allow her to transition from physically demanding cleaning work into something gentler and more aligned with her extraordinary gift for care.
All proceeds from the sale of her bead flower sculptures — and from a selection of my own paintings — go directly to Mom.
You can also give directly via PayPal @evedevore (please choose "send to friends and family").
Please send my Mama love from your heart to hers. This is as precious as anything else.
Love, Eve
