The date: May 8th, 2002. The place: HANG, a small neighborhood gallery in San Francisco’s sunset district. Evening falls, and the crowd expands throughout the L-shaped art space. Inside is an exhibit like no other: The Art of Life, a collection of decorated plaster casts of pregnant bellies. My jaw drops as I move with the crowd from one belly to another. One is covered with fur, adorned with antlers, and mounted like a hunting trophy.
Another is transformed into a sailing ship, an impish face peering in through a porthole. An enormous fish hangs suspended from the ceiling — a “booby-eyed grouper” —named for the bulging-eyed face formed from a woman ripe with child. Belly after belly, every expression is as unique as the children they represent, about to enter this world.
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