Yep, I love everything about this project, titled “Low Supply”, by US born / Vancouver based artist Katherine Duclos. There are so many things – from emotions to politics to opinions – that come up when the topic of how women should feed their babies comes up. Well, I think Katherine is using this latest series {featuring cement sculptures and ink, acrylic, gouache paintings on Yupo} to explore this very personal subject in such a beautiful way. Here is her description of how it started, and where it’s going is fantastic:
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“This project began with breastfeeding my now 11mo old, though in retrospect, the emotions and experiences driving this work began with my first child, who is now 4. This body of work is about breastfeeding, pumping, the trappings and accoutrement of sustaining a life with your body, and the emotional weight we carry as mothers, vessels, food source. For a long time I’ve made very different work that wasn’t particularly personal to me but this body of work is my soul laid bare, all of my anxieties as a mom, all the feelings of inadequacy as I feed my daughter with a low milk supply.
But my experience and emotions are not enough to sustain this work because I had a hunch the emotional weight of this experience was carried by many, many moms. So, I reached out in my online mom’s groups, my neighborhood groups, my friends’ groups, and I asked them to contribute. I asked for pumps, bottles, pump parts, nipples, expired frozen breastmilk, anything to do with feeding a baby. And the response has been overwhelming and positive. In a little over a month I’ve collected from moms as far as New York and as close as my neighborhood. I come home to bags of pumping supplies on my porch, left by moms I don’t know, who heard about my project. And I took those materials and started making work with them and about them. This project is just beginning. Please get in touch if you’d like to participate.“
{found via Pennylane Shen}
Source: thejealouscurator