Based on a series of portraits by Dorothea Lange, Asylum's mother character was proving hard to realise. The sources are images of a migrant worker and mother from California, 1936. These were hard times and it shows in her face.
In Nipomo, California, Lange came across Florence Owens Thompson and her children in a camp filled with field workers whose livelihoods were devastated by the failure of the pea crops. Recalling her encounter with Thompson years later, she said, “I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet. I do not remember how I explained my presence or my camera to her, but I do remember she asked me no questions. I made five exposures, working closer and closer from the same direction.”
www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/dorothea-lange-migrant-mother-nipomo-california-1936
Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California - Excerpts from series (Dorothea Lange, 1936)
If portraying the feminine form wasn't an enigma in itself, adding a layer of toughness and the world-weary is proving doubly so.
Mother - Initial sculpt
