The Expressions Series is a personal journey manifested in a 5-piece mini assemblage.
This series came about because I needed an avenue to express the overpowering energies that I was experiencing after the arrival of baby Maia who finally came home after spending 52 days in the NICU, having been born at 29 weeks.
Indeed, it is a time to be grateful and to celebrate the arrival of my little bundle of joy. I AM grateful and truly happy that after a difficult pregnancy and a rough labor, baby Maia arrived safely and is now doing great. However I thought it was important to also address the difficult side of caring for a new baby, especially a preemie. More so, this series served as a way of releasing the building energies within me, in the only way I am familiar with ... thru art.
Crossroads
Crossroads addresses the feeling of being caught in some sort of a confusion, not unlike standing in the middle of a busy cross road where the traffic is coming from all directions and having no where to run ... an upheaval of the life I have grown used to … the difficult task of learning to re-adapt.
A series of criss crossing busy paperstock hopefully represents confusion and congestion, rusty screws and washer are symbolic of traffic lights and roundabouts, locations for high traffic areas.
Stretched
Stretched addresses the feeling of being a mother again and having to juggle everything else at the same time. This feeling of being “stretched“ becomes so overwhelming sometimes that I just want to curl up in a corner and cry. A feeling of not being in control, inadequacy and incompetency ... not unlike too little butter being spread on too thick a toast ...
A rusty washer held on four corners is self explanatory of the word “stretched“ … I hope.
Protect
Unless one has had the experience of caring for a preemie, you will never know the things preemie parents have to go thru for their babies. Protect addresses the natural instinct to protect, to keep the baby safe from harms way, for the health hazards and dangers to a preemie are very real. It also gives you a glimpse of how others might look at it as being paranoid or overly protective.
Protection comes in a dramatic form here, where the seedling in the bottle is cradled safely in barbwire. The background effect is one of an overgrown forest, dense and hidden, a place of isolation and in that, safety in paranoia proportions for the growing seedling.
Production
I totally believe that breastmilk is best for my baby. But milk production has never been a breeze for me as it is for some of my counterparts. Many times milk production becomes a source of frustration and depression. For when the body fails, the mother takes it as a personal failure.
Apart from being a consciously structured piece, the metal strip has been stamped with numbers that represent the hours of the day. Note that they are in 3-hour intervals, a regimented “milk expressing/production“ routine that all breastfeeding mothers follow religiously in order to maintain maximum milk supply.
Wee
Wee is inspired and especially created in tribute to my little 29 weeker baby, Maia Fae. It represents the struggle she has had to face upon her arrival in this world … Her fight to survive, her strength, her tenacity and her spirit, which has now become more and more apparent, especially during feeding time :)
The stamped numbers was the identification number on Maia’s NICU tag. The littlest washer of course represents her ... small, unique and has as much right to be amongst us as her larger counterparts.
My wee one, my fighter, my miracle …
