“I am drawn to babies and infants in particular. To me they symbolize innocence and purity. Tattoos, on the other hand, are symbols of our history, a deliberate scarring that we decorate our bodies with as a way of marking and expressing our creativity. I don’t have any tattoos, but I love seeing them on people.
The story behind this piece had to do with processing the fact that I gave birth to my three children, and the feelings that come with caring for a brand new, perfect and fragile being. My children each came into my life with their own personalities in place—as if they were marked as individuals from birth.
Working figuratively makes me feel connected to the world and humanity. My pieces are based on my dreams and from quick sketches. I think of my figures as metaphors of the human body, rather than literal representations.”
Christina Bothwell studied painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. She started working in clay in 1995, and glass in 1999.
Bothwell’s work has been published in the New Glass Review, The New York Times, and American Craft magazine, among others, and she has won numerous scholarships and grants. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Racine Art Museum, Wisconsin, and the Mobile Museum of Art, Alabama.