Root

This amphora, traditionally made to carry oil, wine, and water, becomes a carrier for something less literal. Its belly is sealed in a deep, glossy midnight blue, while the rim, foot, and handles are left appearing bare. The surface shifts between protected and exposed, like the line between holding something in and offering it out. Sgraffitoed into the blue is a fruit tree on one side and, on the other, an early relief–like image of a mother nursing her infant. The two figures mirror each other: the tree rooted in the ground, bearing fruit; the mother rooted in her body, bearing sustenance. I am that tree and I am that mother: rooted in, bearing, giving, still standing. This amphora carries the feeling of holding life while also being what sustains it. Like an amphora, a mother carries weight, need, history… but she isn’t just a vessel. She is also the well: the body that feeds, the place nourishment comes from, the origin the baby reaches for when it roots.

Earthenware, sectionally-thrown, terra sigillata, deepened blue glaze.