Ep. 74: EVE 'Mother Knows Best' — Limited Edition Art Print
LIMITED EDITION SERIES ~ (1 of 25) ~ (1 of 10) ~ (1 of 5)
Ep. 74: EVE 'Mother Knows Best' — Limited Edition Art Print
HAND-CUT RELIEF PRINT
PRINTED IN THE BYRON BAY HINTERLAND
Three bodies, one inside the other.
A woman curled around the earth, and inside her arms, held against the planet, a small terracotta child. Her hair is the ocean. Leaves grow behind her. Around all of it, hand-cut letters.
The original artwork from Ep. 74, now as a limited edition archival print.
Made to order in the Byron Bay Hinterland. Please allow 3–4 weeks.
AT A GLANCE
— Original artwork from Ep. 74
— Hand-cut forms in flat colour, reproduced as an archival pigment print
— Ilford Galerie 310gsm, 100% cotton rag
— Framed or unframed
— A4, A3, A2 and A0
— Editions of 25, 25, 10 and 5
— Printed in the Byron Bay Hinterland
— Made to order · please allow 3–4 weeks (A0, 4–5 weeks)
✓ Archival 100% cotton rag · ✓ Pigment inks · ✓ Made to order · ✓ Closed edition
MADE TO ORDER · ALLOW 3–4 WEEKS
Count the embraces. The woman holds the earth, her arm crossing in front of it and her leg coming down over it so that she is wrapped around rather than standing behind. The earth holds the child, who sits against the continents. And the woman holds the child too, her hands closing on the far side. Three bodies nested, and the enclosure works in both directions — you cannot say which of them is being protected, because all three are inside something.
Now the colour, which is doing the argument. The woman is blue. The same blue as the ocean she is wrapped around; her hair is the sea. She is made of the planet’s material. The child is not — the child is terracotta, clay-red, earth rather than water, and it is the only warm thing in a picture otherwise entirely blue and green. Your eye goes to it before anything else, and it is the smallest element in the composition. That is engineered.
Which makes the title the uncomfortable part. Mother knows best said to a child is gently authoritarian — the phrase a parent uses to end an argument rather than win one. Said about the earth it is something closer to a plea, and possibly a warning. The picture gives you both readings and refuses to settle which mother it means. Hung in a nursery it reads one way. Hung in a kitchen in 2026 it reads another.
Nobody has a face. The woman is a silhouette with a jaw and the suggestion of a nose; the child is an outline and a hand. There is no portrait here and no particular family, which is what lets the sentence be addressed to everyone.
The letters are deliberately rough. Hand-cut, uneven, tilting, each one slightly wrong — set against painted forms that are smooth and resolved. That friction between a careful image and a hand-torn alphabet is what stops it reading as corporate. The words were made by a person who was not trying to be neat.
Behind it all, the leaves. Several species, several greens, some pale enough to be translucent, scattered loosely around the outside and partly hidden behind the figure. They are not arranged. They are just growing, behind everything, regardless.
And her foot comes down past the bottom of the globe and out of the frame. She is larger than the earth she is holding — not kneeling to it as in Ep. 60, but curled around it the way someone asleep curls around a baby. It is the least reverent and most tender posture in the range.
Of the eight works, this is the one that reads furthest across a room. It is a picture with a sentence in it, and it is unembarrassed about that.
Sixty-five impressions of Mother Knows Best will exist. Across every size, for the life of this label.
— A4 · edition of 25
— A3 · edition of 25
— A2 · edition of 10
— A0 · edition of 5
The editions fall as the paper grows. An A0 is not a larger A4 — it is a different object, on a different roll, taking two people to lift off the table and a wall wide enough to carry it. There are five.
1 of 5 means five people. Not five this season, not five per country. Five, ever.
When a size sells out, it closes. It does not return in another colourway, at another trim, or as an anniversary run. We keep a record of every edition against the artwork.
This is an edition, not the original. The original gouache was painted once and is not for sale. What you are buying is an archival pigment print of it on cotton rag, strictly limited, and then stopped.
Printed on Ilford Galerie 310gsm — a 100% cotton rag, acid-free, archival fine-art paper with a soft matte surface and a natural white tone. No optical brighteners, so it will not yellow or shift. Pigment inks, rated for over a century without fading under normal conditions.
Cotton rag was chosen to match the original. A relief print is a conversation between a hard block and a soft sheet — the plank grain, the skips, the uneven coverage all exist because paper with tooth received them. A slick paper would reproduce the shape and lose the reason.
Each print is produced to order in Australia and inspected by hand before it leaves us.
— A4 · 21 × 29.7 cm · edition of 25
— A3 · 29.7 × 42 cm · edition of 25
— A2 · 42 × 59.4 cm · edition of 10
— A0 · 84.1 × 118.9 cm · edition of 5
A0 is chest height on most people. It is a wall, not a picture. If you are deciding between A2 and A0, measure the space first — the jump is larger than it looks on a screen.
Framed prints arrive ready to hang — a slim flat white timber moulding, a deep white cotton-rag mat, and glazing. No assembly, no trip to the framer.
Unframed prints ship flat, interleaved with acid-free tissue, in a rigid board mailer. A0 unframed ships rolled in a heavy-gauge tube. Every size is standard A-series, so an off-the-shelf frame will fit without custom cutting.
Hang out of direct sunlight. Handle unframed prints by the edges or with clean dry hands — cotton rag marks easily. Do not use glass cleaner directly on a framed print; spray the cloth, not the glass.
Every print is made to order. Printing begins within two business days of your order, and we ask you to allow 3–4 weeks in total. A0 prints take 4–5 weeks, because they travel by freight rather than post.
It is slower than holding stock. It also means there is no excess, and nothing gets pulped.
— Prints ship separately from garments. If your order includes both, the tee will come first.
— A4, A3 and A2 ship tracked with Australia Post. International shipping is available on these sizes, calculated at checkout.
— A0 prints ship by freight carrier, not Australia Post, and are available within Australia only. They exceed international parcel limits in both rolled and framed form.
Returns on prints. Every print is made to order, so we are not able to offer refunds or exchanges for change of mind. Please choose your size and finish carefully before ordering.
If your print arrives damaged, faulty, or not what you ordered, that is a different matter entirely — email us a photo within 7 days at oldest@daughtercollective.com and we will replace it or refund it, your choice. Your rights under the Australian Consumer Law are not affected by anything on this page.
What does “1 of 25” mean?
The edition size. We make 25 of the A4 and A3, 10 of the A2, and 5 of the A0 — and then that artwork is never printed at that size again.
Will it ever be reprinted?
No. Once an edition closes, it closes.
Is this the original painting?
No. The original is a one-off gouache and is not for sale. This is an archival pigment reproduction of it — the paper texture is real, the brushwork is printed flat.
Is it portrait or landscape?
Landscape.
What is the paper?
Ilford Galerie 310gsm — 100% cotton, acid-free, archival.
How big is A0, really?
119 × 84cm — nearly 1.2 metres across. A2 is 59 × 42cm, A3 is 42 × 30cm, A4 is 30 × 21cm.
Is this one suitable for a child’s room?
Yes, and it is probably the best in the range for it — strong simple colour, a clear figure, nothing frightening, and a sentence a child can read. A3 is the usual choice.
Can I frame it myself? The framed version uses a custom mat, but the unframed sheets are standard A-series landscape, so an off-the-shelf frame of the same size will fit.
Why 3–4 weeks? Each print is made to order rather than held in stock, then checked by hand before it ships. A0 takes 4–5 weeks because it travels by freight.
Can I return it if I change my mind? Not on prints, because each one is made to order for you. Damaged or faulty prints are always replaced or refunded.
We named this label Oldest Daughter because the women who carry the most deserve something built to carry them back.
Every artwork in this series was made by hand, for one episode, and printed in our studio in the Byron Bay Hinterland. The prints exist so the work can live somewhere other than a wardrobe.
🤎 from the OD team
