Steel & Reclaimed barn wood.
Torso: 14’x18’x13’ Legs: 8’x11’x15’ Full footprint: 42’x18’x15’
Work in progress. Commissioned for Huntsville Amphitheater by Venue Group. To be installed April ‘22.
3D rendering in progress pictured. Hair will be elaborately detailed with metalwork.
Artist’s Statement: I was musing on being at home in the earth and the capacity to relate with nuance to the earth as many worlds. This being revealed herself, bathing in the great green as she muses up at the deep blue. I also wanted to celebrate black joy, self-love, and nurturance of the body. This piece is dedicated to all the black women who make the world a better place.
For this and the other piece in my Giantessery series, I chose to hire a crew of all women, trans men, and non-binary people. In the venues where I started making large scale sculptures, crews were still almost exclusively male. I want to create opportunities for people who were socialized female to lead with and develop their metal and wood working skills on the job in a creative setting. To make this a truly supportive environment, I am also attempting to shift cultural norms around building and fabrication. Though we are certainly mighty capable of working long strenuous hours, outdoors, through all kinds of weather, we don’t have to. We are approaching our process with a body-friendly nourishing approach, where we’ll work four hours a day over a longer duration, making our outdoor build in Oregon’s wet winter more manageable, allowing people with various family, work, and physical needs to participate.
Lead Artist/Creative Director/3D Modeling: Heather BeGaetz
Artists: Artists: Julia Alora, Miki Masahura-Page, Insa Evans, Brittni Ballou, Sheba Queen, Sara Tone, Kinsey Smyth, Jess Jurries, Allessandra Lione