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Artscape

 

Domestic Menagerie

 

by Tracy Zollinger Turner

 

Janis Mars Wunderlich sculpts a two-inch pig leg out of clay as one of her sons heralds the diaper coupons that have come in the mail and a daughter carves up old Barbie doll bodies and other broken toys to make sculptures in the garage. The Upper Arlington house where Wunderlich creates her own sculptures, which appear with the work of 13 other artists in the new Riffe Gallery show Growing Pains, is as much a gallery of her five children's artwork as her own.

 

She has just cleaned up rabbit poop from the floor of her studio—a greenhouse that overlooks a child's backyard paradise, replete with a sandbox, playhouse and plenty of room to run around.

 

The pig leg belongs to one of the critters climbing on the head of a maternal figure in a work in progress. It sits on the counter next to a spot where a couple of the children squeegeed their hands after throwing clay on her pottery wheel two days earlier.

 

The domestic chaos of summer vacation is as evident in the new piece as it is throughout her house. A sculptural family tree that includes stories from her and her husband's Mormon history has birds coming out of the ears of the mother, a baby coming out from under her skirt, and a menagerie climbing all over her head with visual references to recent events like one son's baseball championship and, of course, rabbit poop.

 

"I have my hands full and all day long, I'm running to and from my studio like a crazy lady, so to me, my life looks like this," she said, gesturing to the sculpture.

 

Like several of Wunderlich's other current works, the maternal figure wears a bra with eyes, a reference to both a heated debate she's been having with her oldest, teenage daughter about whether or not a bikini is too objectifying to wear, as well as the way her own body has changed since she stopped nursing her youngest, two-year-old daughter.

 

Exploring the challenges of motherhood and the unique nature of children have been part of Wunderlich's work for as long as she's been making art, meaning she fits neatly into Growing Pains' theme of work inspired by the formative experiences in life's journey.

 

"I got married really young and took my first clay class right around the same time," she said. "I've had a ceramic record of my life ever since."

 

Creating that record has also been a therapeutic process, Wunderlich explained, allowing her to work through the questions, problems and fears inherent in parenting. "For the first several years, my work was much darker and edgier. Raising children is scary—I was feeling overwhelmed that I have this incredible journey before me and I was wondering if I was up to the task."

 

These days, Wunderlich still has a healthy disdain for "sweet, cutesy" work, but her tone has decidedly lightened.

 

"More recently, I've been able to use my sculpture to find the humor in my situation," she said. "The imagery is a way to laugh about and remember things."

 

Lately, she's been focused on themes like children as alternative fashion accessories, messy houses, wildly dirty laundry and sassy kids. Like the great tales in children's literature that she often reads to her kids, she relies on images of beasts and birds, and often some animalistic-looking people, to play with the notions of childhood and motherhood.

 

"I've always wanted to make my images more than autobiographical," she said, pointing out that Peter Rabbit and the imaginary creatures of Dr. Seuss are universal. "Animals can be about anybody and everybody."

 

July 27, 2006

 

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