Everyday is Mother’s Day Project: Sculpture
MOTHER’S BUNDLING
This is Mother’s Bundling; a physical manifestation of mothering in the vortex of domestic violence.
Motherhood in the context of violence is a high stakes mission weighted by dread and disoriented by panic. For a mother in this situation, humble tasks take on larger magical meaning. Tying children's shoes, doing and undoing knots becomes a spell to ward off brutality and keep children safe. Mothers hold their children close, bundle them against harsh weather and hold them even closer in hours characterized by the sick physics of abuse. Mother’s Bundling, here in its physical representation is created through natural fibers wound and knotted around a cluster of clay. Clay, our universal mother earth, the origin of us all and the substance of the human body. Mother’s Bundling makes visible a struggle that is invisible to some but known by many.
MOTHER’S ABACUS
This is Mother’s Abacus; a physical manifestation of mother’s endless worry in the context of domestic violence.
Each bead on Mother’s Abacus counts and accounts for the deep worry, endless tasks, sleepless sorrow, suffering, hope and joy mother feels - threaded onto endless loop of reckoning. Through emotional battering and despite physical brutality mothering continues on at length. Mother’s Abacus is one part of an elongated process beginning with clay and ending with fire. Clay - our universal mother earth, the origin of us all and the substance of the human body. It is the material from which we emerge, transform and return to continuously. Mother’s Abacus makes visible a struggle that is invisible to some but known by many. It echoes visually and metaphorically women’s capacity and tenacity.
