Denise Osso

QueenMother is a hand-built clay figure that represents two archetypes, The Queen and The Mother. It was inspired by a drawing my daughter made when she was somewhere between 7-9 years old. I liked the woman in the drawing – her regal attitude, her smiling fish eyes and the grounded power of her dress. As mothers do, I put it in a frame. It sat on the bookcase in my writing room and I looked at it for decades. I never realized that the woman in the drawing was me until my daughter told me so, surprised that I did not see what was so very obvious to her.

While I cannot capture the unguarded innocence of my child’s drawing, I tried to stay true to her vision. I built the figure from the ground up, slowly and carefully joining the coils of red clay, in order to make a three-dimensional garment that could both literally stand on its own and withstand the heat of the kiln. That could hold the dark side of power and incorporate the inevitable loss that comes with the gift of parenting. I inscribed the clay with a language of marks which I cannot read but somehow know by heart. I topped the QueenMother’s garment with a two-dimensional image of her face and head, which wears the crown and sits lightly on her shoulders, a balancing act if there ever was one.

How could I not know I was The Queen? How does one who is born to rule learn to live with the empathy that The Mother teaches? Maybe if I look at QueenMother for the next decade I will understand. Maybe. And maybe I should just ask my daughter.

QueenMother 2022 18” x 8” x 8” Red Clay NFS ossodensie@gmail.com deniseosso.com