Ultrasound Jar, 2024
Porcelain, glaze, underglaze, mounted on wood with brass hardware, 14 x 12 inches
“Ultrasound Jar” was based on the ultrasound pictures of my son, frequently taken throughout my pregnancy. It’s a double portrait of a mother and child- mother as vessel and background, and child as a fragmentary presence within. I created the images by starting from a black surface, and then wiping and removing the black underglaze to reveal the porcelain white underneath it. It’s an image made out of absences- wiping away the darkness to reveal a mysterious being, like the image of a baby in utero. I wanted to create something lasting out of the fleeting images spit out of the ultrasound printer, and also to reflect the abundamce of information we get from medical imaging, which still cannot provide full assurances that “everything is okay”.
The overall shape of the work is based on an Ancient Greek storage jar, used in the home and in burial site to store perishables. The texture was made by pushing my fingers into the wet clay, the resulting “pinchings” are symbolic of the baby and mother being touched and prodded in the process of getting a good ultrasound image.
