1
300
2
-
https://artistparentindex.com/files/original/00ef2fef64bd77d483ff15fab97a4f53.png
c443b8cf2672ea3d367b9af423fd33ec
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Artist Parent Index
Person
An individual.
Website
The Artist's website
<a href="http://jillbakergower.com/" target="_blank">http://jillbakergower.com/</a>
Medium
mixed media
silver
sculpture
Location
The location of the interview
New Jersey
Artist Statement
<p>The female experience is a reoccurring theme in my work. My jewelry and sculpture is informed by everyday interactions and observations of gender-based expectations or generalizations. Within advertisements, popular culture, and the media; similar colors, patterns, shapes, beautification techniques, and pastimes intended for women are apparent. My material choices, surfaces, and forms are developed in one way through my exposure and interest in this experience.</p>
<p>The shapes and forms of my pieces come from disparate inspirations including the female form, faceted gems, historic jewelry and metalwork, and tools or implements for beautification or medical procedures. The surfaces of my work are often ornate, etched with lace patterns, and at times are paired with actual crocheted elements. These choices allude to femininity initially by being flowery, lacelike, and curvilinear, by their association with popular use in women’s apparel, and since the act of crochet or lace making is currently and was historically known as a women’s skill. I choose to incorporate skin, red, and pink toned colors in my work primarily to reference human flesh, cosmetics, the body, and blood.</p>
<p>Materials such as skin toned rubber and mirrors reference bodily transformation, self-examination, and vanity. Other materials like pearls, jewels, lustrous fabrics, feathers, enamel, hair, silver, and gold are chosen for their aesthetic qualities, emotional resonance, preciousness, and value associations. With these materials, formal considerations, and influences I create work that is both playful and beautiful and at times even absurd or humorous.</p>
Topic
metalsmithing
female experience
femininity
gender-based expectations
pregnancy
womb
gestation
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Jill Baker Gower
aesthetic
female experience
femininity
gestation
jewelry
metalsmithing
mixed media
New Jersey
pregnancy
sculpture
silver
womb
-
https://artistparentindex.com/files/original/b8d64cc83dbdb28853fc0c20f728110a.jpg
804fc477e525d362a9aee471a0e3199c
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Artist Parent Index
Person
An individual.
Website
The Artist's website
<a href="http://www.bethgoobic.com/#!metamorphose/cghg" target="_blank">http://www.bethgoobic.com/#!metamorphose/cghg</a>
Medium
ceramics
Location
The location of the interview
Pompton Lakes
New Jersey
Artist Statement
Metamorphose is an ongoing conversation in clay about the journey of becoming a mother and being a mother. It takes place in this study of a common utilitarian household item, the mug. These mug forms are endowed with the presence of both vulnerability and strength. They celebrate the glorified transformation of the pregnant body, but they bring visibility and conversation to the continuing transformation of the body and person after birth. That they are mugs points to the commonness of everyday lived experiences by wo/men in motherhood and motherwork.
Each mug is entirely different reflecting the fact that the experience of mothering is unique to each individual person, even though motherwork is quite often mistaken as a universal concept. These kinds of assumptions about the universality of mothering actually makes the personal experiences of each person doing it invisible. Metamorphose is meant to resist that kind of assumption.
The mugs are a reflection of the pregnant body, the very beginning of the anatomical journey of the female body as it enters motherhood but the mugs also celebrate and acknowledge the transformation of the female body after pregnancy, post birth, which in our society, is a less celebrated transformation, and a less visible journey. Post birth bodies deserve the patience, celebration and glorification that childbearing bodies receive. Post-birth bodies are spacious, healing and rehabilitating, while still maintaining a new additional life. The mugs acknowledge, give presence, and beautify the body post birth.
These mug forms acknowledge the more subtle but continual anatomical journey our bodies endure during motherwork and also a person’s transformative and altering personal journey throughout motherwork. Pertaining to motherwork this conversation in clay is not exclusive to birth mothers, but opens up this conversation to all caregivers that take on motherwork. A man, or a non-biological parent may not physically go through the birthing journey but that person can experience the altering and changing of their own bodies and spirits throughout the journey of motherwork. The common daily motions endured during motherwork, and the effects and marks that motherwork experiences leave on our bodies are also portrayed here in these mugs. With the unknown journey and struggles that each child brings, caregivers are altered in person as they journey with that child through the highs and lows of each experience. This altering of person throughout the lifelong journey of motherhood, so private and personal, joyful and painful, messy and beautiful is celebrated and acknowledged in these basic everyday utilitarian objects.
Like motherwork, the mugs are individual, unique and beautifully imperfect. The forms are altered, and asymmetrical, with undulating rims and drippy glazes. I choose to alter the form as a way to represent and interpret how we are altered in person and body in motherwork. The mugs are fired in a salt and soda kiln resulting in much surface variation among the cups.
Each of these mugs are a functional sculpture and an experience, inviting the viewer to apply their own experiences in motherhood and motherwork to the conversation. The vulnerable yet commanding forms salute the invisible labor of caregiving and everyday experiences of motherwork, which involves a metamorphosis of person and body. Metamorphose is an artistic attempt to make the invisibility of motherhood and motherwork visible in households and workspaces via an everyday utilitarian object.
Topic
motherhood
becoming a mother
transformation
postpartum body
pregnancy
mugs
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Beth Goobic
ceramics
motherhood
mugs
New Jersey
Popton Lakes
postpartum body
pregnancy
transformation