'The gift of life is thine' is a project born from a sense of powerlessness over one’s reproductive life, and the urge to try and shape it. Through the unlikely medium of woodworking, this project explores the fantasy of manufacturing life by hand. The work engages with the long-standing, yet questionable comparison between artistic creation and childbirth. The notion of “labor,” with its double meaning, sits at the center of the project, pairing the technical skill of woodworking with the experience of giving birth.
This project is comprised of multiple works, each with a graphical title referencing public symbols of newborns. These signs, intended for instructional use, are ubiquitous in regulated public spaces such as airports, hospitals, and restrooms. While the titles reference familiar pictograms, they are reintroduced in ways that render them illegible. The hand-carved wooden objects are sculptural interpretations of these signs, and the structures on which they rest suggest a setting somewhere between an old hospital nursery and a woodcarver’s workshop.
The carved wooden vises hold each piece in place using pressure alone—like any working vise, they can be re-adjusted. Atop each structure sits a miniature version of the wooden form, carved from HDU (High-Density Urethane), a material commonly used for prototyping in design. HDU is typically color-graded by density, with purple indicating the highest. These smaller pieces offer a glimpse into the artist’s process of making.
The title The gift of life is thine is taken from the opening of Disney’s animated film Pinocchio (1940).
