SOFT MASS

September 4 - November 30, 2025 Union Hall at Bar Marco

A collection of new works made in ceramic, wood and stone by Elise Birnbaum, framed in mahogany by Aisha Bigwood.

This body of work is an attempt to process the hills and valleys, the heaviness and softness that is existence, as seen through the lens of motherhood.  Some depict weight and bigness, others offer the perspective and feeling of smallness and softness that mothering a young child has brought me. My experience in motherhood has been both an all consuming vacuum and a mind expanding encounter with compassion, balance and acceptance.  With seriousness and levity, each work is a meditation on or exploration of a landscape that has brought both crushing heaviness and complete lightness.  These are collected knowledge and experience gained only through being deep within a valley and climbing out of it; enlightenment earned and perspective only realized at the peak when you can see with clarity the entirety of the landscape. 

Framed in Mahogany by Aisha Bigwood, though the word frame feels too commonplace for these wooden structural supports for the ceramic and stone.  They have made each combination of materials feel whole and complete, creating a border for each landscape to exist and to be experienced in its momentary perfectness.  Motherhood has allowed me to really see a thing with so much more clarity and such greater softness.  These frames, for lack of a better word, allow us to see each attempt at depicting this deep observing.

blah blah blah

I have been collecting inspiration for years, carrying around rocks or sayings in my back pocket, waiting for them to spontaneously combust into ideas.