Artist explores the pressures of motherhood

Ceramic artist Ruby Yu-Lu Yeh explores the pressures of motherhood in her award-winning piece, blending personal experiences and cultural reflections. ‘Of Motherhood’ is on display at Perc Tucker Regional Gallery until February 16 as part of the North Queensland Ceramic Awards.

Ceramic artist Ruby Yu-Lu Yeh with her North Queensland Ceramic Awards winning piece 'Of Motherhood'.

Ceramic artist Ruby Yu-Lu Yeh knows what it feels like to be placed under pressure, just like her artworks.

The 35-year-old artist recently won the North Queensland Ceramic Awards’ major prize, with her piece ‘Of Motherhood’ claiming the $10,000 acquisitive City of Townsville Art Collection Award.

The Taiwan-born first generation Australian says the piece reflects the societal and personal pressure of becoming a mother.

“I turned 35 last year and I gave myself immense pressure to think about having children. It’s complicated for my partner and I, due to medical issues. We’ve talked about having children many times and about the route of IVF,” she said.

“I suddenly realised that when my mother was my age, I was already eight years old, and that many of my friends were having their second or third kid.

“The responsibility of raising a kid is a heavy one, and I reflected on the not-so-ideal situation I had as a kid due to extended family reasons. It has been a year of processing mixed feelings and not knowing what the right decision is.”

Arriving in Australia in 2000 with her pregnant mother following the devastating 1999 Jiji earthquake in Taiwan, Ruby says her family experienced challenges with her father staying behind in Asia.

“For the first three years, I lived together with just my mum and my Australian-born brother while my dad worked back in Taiwan,” she says.

“At the age of 14, I moved in with my uncle, aunt and four younger cousins because my mum had to go back to Taiwan. After many ups and downs, my parents finally moved to Brisbane permanently when I was 23.

Ceramic artist Ruby Yu-Lu Yeh has shared the emotional story behind her North Queensland Ceramic Awards winning piece 'Of Motherhood'.

“Looking back on it, I was resentful about our family situation. As a kid, I thought everything would magically figure itself out as I became an adult, but the truth is that my mum and the people around me are still figuring things out just as much as I am.”

It’s this exploration of grace for her own mother that led Ruby to her unique artwork: a pot, shaped with reference to a postpartum body, covered in words of affirmation, confusion, fear and hope both from anonymous message writers and Chinese poems.

For Ruby, this act of making reflects the type of love she experienced from her own mother.

“It’s difficult for my mum’s generation to express their feelings. I grew up rarely receiving words of affirmation,” she explains.

“As opposed to Western culture, where they usually express their love in actions, my mum often thinks of my favourite food and delivers it to my door.

“It was perhaps a little shocking to my parents initially when I decided to quit my PhD in 2020 to dedicate most of my time to clay, but over the years, she showed her support by coming to my exhibitions or sharing with her friends about my work.

“I did ask my mum what she thought about ‘Of Motherhood’. She said she didn’t know how to respond but that she’s grateful God gave her the chance to be my mum.”

The artwork is now much bigger than Ruby and her mother, carrying the weight of the dreams and regrets of scores of message participants.

At a showing of ‘Of Motherhood’ at Paper Boat Press earlier this year, Ruby invited visitors to embrace the pot in the gallery.

Artist Ruby Yu-Lu Yeh recently won the North Queensland Ceramic Awards’ major prize, with her piece ‘Of Motherhood’ claiming the $10,000 acquisitive City of Townsville Art Collection Award.

“I was very touched to see some people become emotional and cry after embracing the work. I was so amazed at the power of this inanimate object that holds so many people’s stories and emotions and which helped me process my own complicated feelings,” she says.

“I had messages from people who said that it was cathartic to write some feelings they had bottled up about being a mother, about the things they couldn’t say to their mother, and both the good and bad emotions we go through as women.

“The work is weirdly comforting and at the same time disgusting for me, which matches the contradictory feelings I often have inside about being a woman; disheartened by human nature and the hardship of generations before me but also encouraged by human nature and the resilience and strength not just for people who became mothers, but for women in general.”

When it comes to winning the North Queensland Ceramic Awards, the ceramicist says she “never imagined” her work would join the echelon of winners from the past 44 years of the prestigious awards.

“I visited the North Queensland Potters Association last year, where I stayed in Townsville for six weeks making work and getting to know the community, and saw all the beautiful ceramic collections both at North Queensland Potters Association and Perc Tucker Regional Gallery,” she says.

“I thought if I only applied for one prize this year, the North Queensland Ceramic Awards would be the one because of its long history and its reputation for attracting high-standard entries from across the country, as well as the focus on showcasing diverse ceramics in Australia.”

To create the messages across her work Ruby used iron oxide paste, a famously finicky medium that required patience and attention to detail. To remain mindful during the process, she drew on her knowledge of Japanese tea ceremonies.

“I believe every life experience influences the way one works. The discipline of repetitive practice in tea ceremony - that every time we serve tea, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime event - is one concept that particularly resonates with me,” she says.

“Last year, when I was in Japan for a six-week residency, I visited many shrines where sutra transcription is performed. Each calligraphy stroke is carefully considered, and calms the mind.

“I was inspired by this practice in the creation of my work, where instead of ink, I used iron oxide paste and tried to adopt the same technique of mindfully copying out both the anonymous stories and the motherhood poems and creation stories in Chinese. I couldn’t make a mistake because iron oxide smudges easily, and once it’s touched the body of the pot, it can’t be changed.

“Both tea ceremony and text transcription are mindful and meditative acts where one needs to pay close attention to small details in the environment and live entirely in the present.”

And while Ruby commits to being in the present, she still has time to reflect fondly on her journey from a budding artist through to where she is today.

“I am extremely grateful for my Queensland ceramic community. I first started out at Mas & Miek Ceramic House where I learnt about various hand-building techniques and I was given a chance to be a studio hand, learning about the process of recycling clay,” she says.

“I did not come from a circle of family and friends who knew about art, but after joining Ceramic Arts Queensland, I started making new clay friends and connections in the ceramic arts world who were kind to a newbie like me.

“The learning never stops, and I look forward to more opportunities to learn, and the new connections along the way.”

‘Of Motherhood’ is on display at Perc Tucker Regional Gallery in Townsville until February 16 as part of the North Queensland Ceramic Awards.

Originally published as Artist explores the pressures of motherhood