Eileen Laskowski | Don't cry over spilled milk, my dear. Milk spills all the time.

Don't cry over spilled milk, my dear. 

Milk spills all the time.

graphite on paper

5.5x5.5 inches (7x7 inches framed)

2025

From the artist:

My drawing is called,

“Don’t cry over spilled milk, my dear.
Milk spills all the time.”

The title is written intentionally in two lines to be characteristic of the stanzas found in a poem, giving a subtle reference to the poetic feeling of the uncontrollable nature of life. The woman, who is not drowning - but rather laying in liquid that is deep enough to surpass her ears - can be seen as someone who is perhaps laying in what the title mentions as the allegorical pool of milk or tears. She is no longer crying - though the pool around her face suggests that she has been before - and she has since then ceased - perhaps now numb to those things that have caused the spills of milk; the pool of tears. She gazes upwards, with a cool look of knowing wisdom. The drawing itself is in the center of the paper - a small, 3x3-inch square viewing window into the life of the woman: a small opening giving recognition to how little we actually know. The title itself can be read as either or both:

1. sage advice, given by one person: “Don’t cry over spilled milk, my dear. Milk spills all the time.”

2. a conversation between two individuals, the first line as the statement and the second line as the response:

   “Don’t cry over spilled milk, my dear.”
   “(But) milk spills all the time.”