01/20/2026
A gift for Dolly.
Hi everyone…
I’ve been holding onto this one for a while.
This project came from my old friend Gordon Madden. When you’re asked to create a gift for someone as iconic and deeply woven into our lives as Dolly Parton, you don’t really know where to start. So I began by asking Gordon what the gift truly needed to be.
I knew early on this wasn’t about likeness or decoration. It had to come from the heart, from Gordon, from me, and from what God was placing on my heart as an artist.
As I began to sketch, the idea for this piece, The Embrace, came quickly and quietly. I tried to complicate it, but every time I felt the same answer: this is it. Small. Simple. Not decoration.
The composition mattered….
I chose not to show Dolly’s iconic face or figure. That felt too obvious. Instead, I kept coming back to her song “Coat of Many Colors.” That coat wasn’t something to be ashamed of—it was armor. Love. Protection. Resilience. That idea became central to the painting.
The mountains in the background represent her East Tennessee roots—the ground she came from and the mountains she climbed, and in many ways chose to stay on, in music, in life, and in family. The field of flowers speaks to what she has given to the world—freely and without keeping score. And of course, there are a few butterflies, those small symbols of transformation that just felt right.
I was also aware she had recently lost her husband, and that even someone as strong and generous as Dolly can be in a vulnerable, very human place. This piece was never meant to explain anything—it was meant to hold space.
When the painting was finished, I built a custom frame for it. A store-bought one wouldn’t do. It needed to quietly support the work, not compete with it.
Sometimes art gets to carry a message in a way nothing else can.
Thank you, Gordon, for trusting me to be part of your gift to someone so special. I hope it spoke clearly—from your heart, straight to Dolly’s.
