The full name of this pregnant goddess sculpture is “A Quiet Moment in the Garden of Hope” and she will be on exhibit (and for sale) from April 2-30, 2013, in the Shenkman Arts Centre display case in Orleans, along with works from other artists in the National Capital Network of Sculptors.  Do stop by and take a gander!

This piece is 9.5″ square and the goddess alone is about 3″ long – the largest pregnant version i’ve ever made – the picture below gives some perspective. I made the goddess, all the glass components, created the textured background then customized an existing frame to match. She has a sparkling faux diamond in her belly button and the butterflies were purchased from murrini artist Greg Chase.

It also gave me the chance to incorporate some new mixed media techniques I’d learned from a Sara Sally Lagrand class (who makes the most fabulous glass and mixed media brooches!).  I keep going back and forth regarding whether or not to keep the frame…

There’s an interesting story behind this particular sculpture as well:  This mixed media piece is the 3rd large sculpture i’ve made and was created for the Expressions of Infertility art competition run by a local infertility clinic last fall.  Now that was a somewhat strange event…

I had created this piece based on the joy, optimism and hope that women trying to conceive experience, however, i don’t think that theme went over well in this particular context. Having never been infertile, I realize now that i didn’t really understand the depth of turmoil this brings to families and especially to the infertile couples themselves. Many of the other pieces submitted were very dark and spoke to feelings of blame, depression, worthlessness and desperation.  As well, the energy at the vernissage was quite tense – especially around the two women there actually with babies (which i assumed were conceived with the assistance of the clinic).

That evening I finally realized that despite the original intentions of the clinic, while it was advertised as an art competition, in actuality, it was (or became) more about the clients of the clinic using art as a therapeutic medium to express the devastation they were experiencing or had experienced.

I still love this sculpture as it reflects my own happy experience with pregnancy but looking back now, that competition probably wasn’t the right venue for it… In any case, here is my background story on the competition site that led to the creation of this piece:  http://bit.ly/11CBBUS