Written in editorial dialogue with my mentor and colleague Jehan Mullin, the Aloft interpretive label marked my first time having my words accompany a contemporary installation in an encyclopedic art museum.
Aloft, 2016-2017
Hand-blown Murano glass processes, beads, thread
I’m sure the inside of my mother’s tummy was festooned with most
wonderful drawings and love letters to her-
“I love you, Mommy!”
—Joyce J. Scott
Baltimore native Joyce J. Scott uses intricate beadwork and vibrant blue,
hand-blown Murano glass in this imaginative parent-child figurative
sculpture. In Aloft, a child's beaded limbs wrap around a mother's head and
neck. This tender configuration might be a tribute to Scott's mother, artist
Elizabeth Talford Scott, who was her first beadwork and sewing teacher.
According to Scott, her mother's sacrifices helped keep her and the children
of their working-class community nourished, both literally and creatively. In
this sculpture the child wears a cloak, shaped like a fish and made of
individual outstretched hands, perhaps suggesting the importance of a
mother's uplifting hand.