Awurade Baantanfo

Awurade Baatanfo (Nurturing Spirit) is a mixed media sculpture, dedicated to my late mother Lottie Mae Edwards. My mother’s sudden passing in February 2019 sent me on a challenging journey of trying to understand life and death, loss, grief and mourning from many perspectives and reconcile all the above for myself. I’ve created this sculpture as a part of my process of moving through the stages of grief towards acceptance; Acceptance that my mother is no longer here with me in the physical but possibly present in the ethereal. Depicting my mother, as a larger than life, pearlescent dove spirit, and all the symbolism involved in every choice, gives me comfort. Awurade Baatanfo is a vision of my mother than I can accept.

Photography by Joe Kusumoto; Courtesy of Breckenridge Creative Arts.