bad mother / mad mother

My daughter’s school class-room assistant loves to knit. Last December she said that she had knitted my daughter a cardigan, as she knew that I never would. On Christmas Eve her husband delivered it, as he handed me the package he said two words, not “Happy Christmas” but “Bad Mother”. The exhibition of this piece, entitled Bad Mother (2013), elicited another surprising remark. A male visitor congratulated me on what he saw as a “very honest admission”. My identity as a mother and the tumultuous emotions I have felt are the driving force behind an on-going series of knitted works.