The sculpture Big Mama is inspired by Pachamama, the South American indigenous deity and earth mother. Big Mama is connected to earth by rootlike hair falling down her back. She is a stable, sturdy, mature woman and her lap is big enough for an adult to sit in.
Big Mama is a larger-than-life cement sculpture. The armature is built out of welded rebar and carved Styrofoam, covered by three layers of fiberglass tape and polymer-enhanced cement. At the end, I added glass mosaic to her green dress.
I made her for Art in Place Charlottesville in 2011. She was placed close to a sidewalk at the intersection of Preston Avenue and McIntire Road. It didn’t take long for the public to start interacting with Big Mama. Someone attached a golf ball to her forehead, using chewing gum. Someone else removed the golf ball, and then the first someone reattached it. Day after day the golf ball went on and off.
It became obvious the archetypal feminine awakens emotion in young and old.
After a year Big Mama was moved by a crane to the lawn in front of the McGuffey Art Center, in a busy pedestrian area. The interactions with Big Mama increased. Young children sat on her lap to be photographed, someone dressed her in a hat and a scarf in the winter and young men poured left over lunch over her head a few times. Once, I even witnessed an enthusiastic kid attempting to have sex with (to fornicate with) Big Mama.
It became obvious the archetypal feminine awakens emotion in young and old.
The responses to Big Mama surprised and delighted me, but I guess it should have been expected, leaving an 800-pound cement woman on a lawn in the middle of the city.