Pregnancy … Musing

10″ x 8″ x 7″

The sculpture was occasioned by a chance request of a pregnant artist working across from me in a large shared studio. The room was quiet. I should say quiet until the young woman let out a shriek. She motioned to a woman working beside her. “Come over here. Feel the little guy kicking.” The woman went over and placed her hand on the woman’s belly. The pregnant woman seemed lost in reverie. Then she looked at me. “Come over here. Feel his foot,” I was hesitant. It seemed a little too intimate to do with someone I hardly knew.

However, touching her belly and seeing her lost in reverie got me thinking. There no other way that anyone enters into the world except through the body of the woman.

To quote John O’Donohue … A woman “is the portal to the universe. No two humans can ever come closer than when one is forming inside the other’s depths. No man ever comes nearer to a woman. No woman ever comes nearer to a woman. During the entire nine months the mother sees nothing. The whole journey is a hidden one. It is the longest human journey from the invisible to the visible. From every inner pathway, the labyrinth of her body brings a flow of life to form and free this inner pilgrim.”

The woman I’ve sculpted was occasioned by seeing Nicolas Africano’s untitled glass sculpture of a sitting woman.