This is a work-in-progress!
I’m currently working on a breastfeeding project. I’d like to show that special view that only the mother gets, looking down on her baby as it nurses at her breast.
Mothers and babies are often depicted in art, particularly in Madonna and Child sculptures which are so popular in the Catholic tradition, but nowadays Mary is rarely shown feeding baby Jesus.
I feel strongly that images of breastfeeding should be acceptable. I was lucky enough to bring up my kids in Germany where breastfeeding in public has been accepted without a second glance since at least the mid 1980s, but I am aware of the stigma surrounding public breastfeeding in the UK and the US.
In these ceramic “sketches”, I’ve reduced the mother to an arm, a shoulder and a breast. This is not to denigrate her, but to concentrate the focus on the baby and the contact between the baby and the breast. Babies suck surprisingly hard and take a lot of nipple into their mouths. Their chubby little cheeks are full of sucking muscle and they grow so fast with all that goodness.
To give birth and to breastfeed are amazing experiences. I want to celebrate them here.
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