Local
midwife Maria Iorillo will be among the 56 women pictured
in Making Mothers Visible San Francisco, a May 12
exhibition at the Main Library. Photo
courtesy IMOW
Portraits of 56 San
Francisco women, including three from Noe Valley, will be on
display starting
Mother’s Day weekend at a most unusual exhibition venue: the
exterior walls of
the Main Library building.
Entitled Making Mothers Visible San
Francisco, the
installation features black-and-white photographs ranging in
size from 5 to 15
feet. The public, pop-up display is the creation of the
International Museum of
Women (IMOW), an online salon based in San Francisco.
The outdoor exhibit “will call attention to and
celebrate the
vital role that mothers play in San Francisco and communities
around the world,
and the importance of their health, empowerment, and
leadership,” says Clare
Winterton, the group’s executive director.
Winterton, an Alvarado Street resident who has
lived in Noe Valley
for six years, is the proud mother of a 3-year-old daughter,
Pearl. Winterton’s
portrait will be on display, as will that of midwife Maria
Iorillo, founder of
Wisewoman Childbirth Traditions on Church Street, and Hoffman
Avenue resident
Sue Baelen, a midwife with the Bay Area Homebirth Collective.
A trio of volunteer photographers traveled around
the city in
recent months to take the larger-than-life portraits of moms
and midwives.
Their works will be wheat-pasted on the library wall and are
scheduled to hang
until Memorial Day—or until Mother Nature intervenes.
If you miss the show, the images can be seen at
the museum’s
online exhibition, “MAMA: Motherhood Around the Globe,”
at mama.imow.org.
The public festivities get under way at 10 a.m.
on Saturday, May
12, when museum staff and volunteers begin to affix the
collection onto the
walls of the library, located at 100 Larkin St. in the Civic
Center. The
completion of the installation will be marked at 2 p.m. with a
community celebration
and speeches.
Many of the mothers will be on hand to share
their stories. The
family-friendly day will also include free art activities for
children and
adults. For more information, go to www.imow.org.
