Unbegotten
Gallery at the Denver Performing Arts Complex & Helikon Gallery- Denver CO, 2014
Handmade paper, wire, beeswax, powdered pigment, graphite, ink, yarn, baby-blanket yarn, fabric stiffener, fishing line
Elements from C | O | N | T | I | N | U | U | M: Interrupted Conversations were altered and re-contextualized to create Unbegotten. The new work built on some of the metaphoric underpinnings from the previous incarnation, but its conceptual thrust was different. This piece reflected my intense longing, struggle, and ultimate failure to conceive and bear another child. I used many of the same elements, but here the large spheres (that resonate as giant eggs, or planets, or cells, - or perhaps unborn souls) – are trapped in nets crocheted from baby-blanket yarn, and the belly of the figure contains a tangled mass of crocheted yarn, with more small crocheted droplets raining out of it.
My mother used to crochet, and after her death, I inherited her crochet hooks – and re-learned how to crochet (she taught me when I was a girl, but I had long since forgotten.) I used her hooks for the fiber work in this piece. This detail was very significant to me, but a viewer would not have had any way to know about it.