Milk Clock, Digital video and components  (6 mins 58 secs), dimensions variable, 2017.

Milk Clock was created after working on Saturate Desolate with Jessica Dupuis (keep scrolling down to see), as a further exploration of the physical and psychological experience of breastfeeding twins around the clock for 14 months. It is simple and direct, but clearly shows the constant and insistent nature of the act of breastfeeding on the mind and body of a mother.

When shown, the piece is projected large scale on a gallery wall. The black disappears in the light and you see only the pulsing milk, shown below.

Saturate Desolate, Ceramic on cardboard (Dupuis), Digital video and components (Beck) (6 mins 21 secs), 16” x 53” x 1.5”, 2016.

This is documentation of a collaboration with artist Jessica Dupuis (http://www.jessicadupuis.com)

Jessica’s work evolves from an experimental process in which she uses a combination of clay slip and discarded materials such as newspaper and cardboard and transforms them into art objects. Emily Beck works interdisciplinary with video, sound and sculpture- responding to her relational environment. Both often touch on a duality of sorts, and a revealing or awakening. In this collaborative piece Jessica’s ceramic sculptures become a textural projection screen for a digital video of Emily’s.

Jessica’s two panels are ceramic on USPS Priority mail cardboard boxes. They are similar in size and form, but differ in color. Emily recently gave birth to twins. Emily’s video represents the dual feeling of fullness and emptiness present postpartum in her emotional and physical state. Physically it represents the feeling of filling and emptying of the breasts during feeding, which is both satisfying and painful. Emotionally, it represents the feeling of love for her children and a loneliness/helplessness that often comes postpartum.  Jessica’s sculptures go through a wet and dry process as well. The end result is delicate and hard fragments. The pairing of the video over the two textural fields represent two breasts, two babes, the dual emotional state as well as the process of wet becoming dry.