Mama Sunshine

2021, cotton skirt, fibreglass reinforced jesmonite, steel fixings, 77 x 14 x 177 cm 

I made this piece by casting sections of my children’s clothes onto the skirt – weighing it down. A lady told me about a memory of holding onto her mother’s yellow skirt. As a mother I thought how much I dislike the feeling of someone clinging onto my skirt. I found a yellow skirt in a charity shop. Opened like a sun it becomes a banner, a flag or a cape – a joyful life force. At the same time the burden of parenting and the co-dependency between mother and child, expressed through tactile weight.