My Four Mothers

"My Four Mothers", Mixed Media

This sculpture represents my four mothers: three extended, one biological. I wanted to create an homage to these women who have encouraged my creativity. Cindy, Teresa, KW, and my mom have all supported my pursuit of art. Not only have they supported me, but they have pushed me to ask, "What if..?" in my art throughout the years. The metaphor I worked with for this art piece was, "These four women have fueled my creativity as air fuels fire." The parts of this piece that holds significant symbolism are the candles and the flames. The candle on the left is taller because it represents my three extended mothers. I used scale to show how many people each candle represents (height); therefore, the candle on the right is smaller because it represents one person: my biological mother. I did not create the scale difference, in order to signify importance. I used scale variety to represent the number of people only. The two candles together represent a passage together, in which my mothers have created for me. This passage opens every time I see one of my mothers, and I am able to refresh my creative perspective through them. The flames are significant because there are hearts that I sculpted inside of the flame. Each heart represents one of my mothers.

I did not have any specific artist for inspiration in mind when I was creating this piece. However, while I was sculpting the flames, I realized that they were very surrealistic. I have always been attracted to the surrealistic movement, and I have always been drawn to Salvador Dalí's work.