“This vessel is one of the first from the series of pots Unsung Muses and prioritizes the narrative of Hatshepsut, as she was perhaps the most successful female pharaoh of Egypt. She brought prosperity and peace to Egypt through her work to improve infrastructure and trade routes. Her success was so great that her male successors attempted to erase her from history by literally chiseling her image off the walls and attempting to destroy all statues of her. By honoring her existence in this large vessel, I center the narrative of women’s power and capabilities. All the symbols and patterns surrounding her portrait were taken from Egyptian art and hieroglyphs. The quote is my own writing and reads: They will not give you power. They sense it in your bones. You must demand it; take it from them.”
History Lesson Power Is Always Taken, 2014 Sculpture
History Lesson: Power Is Always Taken, 2014
Hand-built and carved porcelain vase
Dimensions: 36 H x 22 W x 10 D in.
Weight: 30 lbs
Alex Hodge was always drawn to the arts and regularly channeled her creativity as a child whether in watercolor classes or scrapbooking with her mother. Hodge focuses on prioritizing women’s narratives in all aspects of her work. Through the decorative and symbolic details, she hints at narratives without completing them to invite the viewer to participate in creating meaning. The women she invents exist in the present but is of the imagined future in which we all have room to flourish, to tell our stories, to give and receive love, and to express the beauty and pain of the human condition. Fundamentally, her artworks are a celebration of the tenacity and vulnerability of women and clay, an interplay of history and hope.
