50 Revolutions

50 Revolutions. 2015. Limited edition of 35.

I turned fifty in May of 2015. Leading up to this I started thinking about a work of art to capture the milestone. I turned to a work from about five years earlier that I created. Mother Tree, a large sculptural dress that turns into a tree, as pure white crocheted threads representing mother’s milk cascade from the chest and turn into multi-colored roots as they hit the floor. These roots were crocheted and contributed by a community of five hundred.

Here’s a short video in which I talk about the book.

50 Revolutions represents the fifty revolutions I’ve taken around the sun and my evolving thoughts on motherhood. Both projects stem from the bouts of isolation and inadequacy I feel as a mother, so again I reached out to my community seeking fifty words about mother/motherhood and realized how similar the journey is for all of us. The book includes a Mapping Motherhood print and a miniature Mother Tree. Each of the fifty rings in the print, like the rings in a tree, contains one of the words, hand written. These words are the topography of motherhood: survival, mystery, constant, awakening, home…. A miniature Mother Tree sits in the middle of the print with two single strands of crocheted mother’s milk representing this thread that has flowed through mothers since the beginning of time.

50 Revolutions was published in an edition of thirty-five by Helen Hiebert Studio in the autumn of 2015. The print is an archival digital print on hand stained Tyvek® which folds up into a house and features double-couched stenciled handmade paper covers. The dress is made of handmade abaca leather paper with embedded string. The box is laser cut stained plywood fabricated by Platypus Papers.

Box size: 10″ x 6″ x 2″; Mini Mother Tree: 8″ x 4″ x 4″; Mapping Motherhood Print: 18″ diameter