Gina Pederick

The seeds for this piece were planted in childhood when my father gave each of my brothers a pewter tankard. The tankards were engraved with their male lineage detailing the names and dates of their forefathers, with space below for more men. My sister and I were each given a pewter fruit bowl engraved only with our name and date of birth, no lineage. We were simply vessels to deliver another man’s descendants.

Deeply personal, Foremothers is a gift to my ten-year-old self; it unashamedly follows the womb and does not deviate from my direct female line.

Each woman is represented by a different colour thread. Chronologically accurate, we follow the line of her life as she shifts from child to mother to grandmother.

The block print, in the form of a mitochondria, celebrates the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which children inherit only from their mother, and is little changed, even over hundreds of generations.

Inside each mitochondrion I have stitched a small knot to represent every child carried by that woman.

Like the tankards, Foremothers has an element of heirloom about it. It is an item to be placed on the table at family gatherings, so these women are remembered, talked about and celebrated.