Art as Therapy, in the shape of my Uterus

As someone who has dealt with infertility for the past 5 years, I have a pretty complicated relationship with my uterus. There’s a lot of loss and grief tied up in it for me. I recently took to my craft as a way to spend time processing some of the complicated feelings I have with my reproductive system. Working to take something that brings up so much pain, sadness, grief, frustration, and turn it into something beautiful. To remind me of the strength, resilience, and power that this part of my body holds.


Working in wax was the perfect way to do this. It’s an intimate way to shape something; I spent hours carving, melting, adding to, taking away, making multiple womb themed pieces that allowed me to really sit with a lot as I stared at, pondered, and manipulated their forms. I even referenced actual images of my uterus, taken during a surgery, during which I lost a fallopian tube. Using an image of my own body as a reference for this work was powerful.



My intention around this project was very personal. I wanted to make something meaningful for myself, period. And I realized while working on this, that I spend so little time creating in that way. After 10 years of selling jewelry, I’ve gotten used to carefully balancing myself and my customers desires and needs, and it was surprising to experience how strange it felt to completely tune out any variables aside from my own desires as I made something. And the process of working through my own emotions and feelings through art felt so good, that it left me wondering why I don’t do this more often. I will be making it a priority to carve out time for this type of creativity in the future.


  
While this work will obviously be something I cherish, I couldn’t in the end keep it all for myself. I know there are others who will also find this meaningful.

I am offering them to my community here, because I know I am not the only one with complicated feelings around my reproductive system. When searching for other uterus or womb themed jewelry, I found surprisingly little out there that felt high quality, meaningful, and timeless. So this is something I felt compelled to offer.


I know I'm not alone in the rocky relationship I have with my uterus. Whether it's infertility, hormonal issues, endometriosis, menopause, PCOS, PMDD, even giving birth. For those of us with wombs, this part of our bodies is complicated.

It's also an incredibly beautiful, powerful, and mysterious part of us, and on top of all the pain it comes with, it is a constant reminder of our strength and resiliency. I believe more and more that having a uterus goes hand in hand with that. 

While this jewelry is steeped with meaning for me, I hope that they can offer the same to you in whatever your journey is with this part of your body. Let it hold, and represent, whatever you need it to. 

In honor of Mother’s Day, I’m releasing a *very* small number of these womb themed pieces on my website, and am hoping to have a few for sale at my Pop-up at Western Cider May 4th. The minimal uterus charm without fallopian tubes, and ovaries has been made into a mold, so I will be able to make more in the future, and even offer it in 14k gold or sterling. But for now, I only have a few, so if you want these sent as a Mother’s Day gift, the time is now!

You can view the whole collection and other limited pieces I've curated for Mother's Day here.

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