In UD Printmaking Professor Laura Post’s newest on-campus exhibition, “Mommy! Mommy! Look! Look!”, which is currently residing in the Upper Gallery up until March 1st, Post delves into themes of motherhood, growth and the beauty of family.
When entering the Upper Gallery space, the viewer is face-to-face with a collection of 3D and 2D printed designs. Hung up upon the walls are beautiful depictions of a growing child, dispersed around molded forms of a mother’s pregnant body.
The artworks that Post produced can be divided into two categories – the printed pieces and the molded pieces – each of which has interesting processes and meanings that combine within the exhibition to create a deeply moving show.
Before creating “Mommy! Mommy! Look! Look!”, Post had created a collection of molded works, specifically casting faces. She described how this new exhibition is an extension of her previous body of work, where she had been making casts of faces of her close family and friends, and would mix those dimensional elements with her printmaking works.
These earlier works, created as early as 2015, were focused on themes of biological family and chosen family, specifically how families evolve and how that affects personal identity.
These original themes can be seen within Post’s new pieces, as they all correlate to the identity of “mother” and how one takes up this new role of “mother” after giving birth.
Describing the jump to motherhood as well as her experience in creating her artwork, Post remarked, “…it became life, a transition in myself from before I was mother to being a mother, and you know, it’s joyful.
“I had hoped that the exhibition would come through as joyful, and it’s a very exciting and amazing thing, and I’m thrilled every day, but it’s a huge change too. So there’s like, a huge shift in my understanding of myself in relation to this other person that I’m taking care of”.
While talking to Post more about her exhibition, process and inspirations, she delved into describing the use of handmade paper in the show. Post pointed out the inclusion of using handmade paper for her printed pieces, saying
“…So, the prints on the walls – except for two – are handmade paper that I made in Japan, that I did monotype prints on.For a lot of the casts on the wall, those same prints with that paper were used to cast a mold of me eight months pregnant. That’s the majority of the pieces”.
She took an old pair of pants that didn’t fit her after giving birth, and turned the fibers into more paper. The specific process that Post used to create her prints is known as watercolor monotype printing, in which paints are spread onto a piece of plexiglass, and then run through a printing press.
This process was incorporated into the molded pieces, as Post would take the printed paper and then use it as paper mache, pressing the paper to the body and creating a beautiful mold of the body.
Touching back upon the molded figures, an adorable addition that Post added to her works are children’s crafts that her son completed while at daycare. Calling these pieces that also feature her son’s artwork “Collaborations”, this sweet mixture of mature artwork mingled with her son’s handprints and googly-eyed crafts adds a heartwarming touch to this already endearing show.
Reflecting more on the inspiration behind her work, Post emphasized the beauty of her journey into motherhood and the ups and downs of being a parent. She touched upon the constant, almost “all-consuming” nature of motherhood, and how that chaos is a part of beauty.
She describes how being a mother for her is going all in, “…it’s not like, Oh, I’m gonna drop in and do this and then walk away…it’s like, constant. That’s not the thing to escape from, it’s the thing to embrace.”
Post emphasized the joy in the chaos of taking care of a young child, discussing how fully immersing yourself in all of the little moments leads to the greatest joys. In the end, Post’s newest exhibition is a collection of joyful memories, the ultimate love letter of a mother to her beloved son.