Blog / 2025 / The Upside Down House

The thing about siblings is that, more than anyone else, they know where you come from, because, of course, they come from the same place.

Sure, there might be a time delay—by which I mean that most of us aren’t born the same day or even the same year as our siblings. But the basic context of their childhood is similar to ours. Whether or not you get along with your sibling when you’re kids or even when you’re adults, they tend to know a lot about you, just from your shared background.

Sibling relationships fascinate me. I’m always drawn to sibling stories in books and movies, and I love seeing adult siblings together. I try to imagine how they were as kids.

I’ve finally made a painting about siblings, thanks to Natalie Schriefer, who wrote the story Cartwheels in Flash Frog, an online flash fiction magazine. Flash Frog pairs visual artists with writers so that each of the texts that the magazine publishes comes with a specially made image.

Schriefer’s story is about two teenagers navigating an intense moment in their household. Their parents are arguing and the word “divorce” has come up. The story also alludes to a time when the siblings were younger and they’d play in the woods, battling monsters with plastic swords.

I liked the idea of making an image that communicated something about what divorce can feel like for kids, but also making the painting open-ended enough that it might refer to any number of traumatic moments of childhood: everything from a move across the country or a death in the family to the feeling of living in a house that’s full of either unreasonable expectations or more overt abuse. I wanted to make an image of children fighting the monster of home.

It’s one that many of us know, even if we were lucky in our upbringing to escape the worst of the home monsters. It’s an upside down feeling in a time and space where stability is vital.

The original artwork is available for $500, plus shipping (and tax if you live in New Jersey)—contact me to purchase. You can buy prints and pretty things of the image here in my print shop.