The Naming

My current project is a collaboration with poet LouAnn
Shepard Muhm. Last week, we agreed on a name for this
project, Reassurances: Incantation Bowls Reimagined.
Below is the first 'prototype' bowl.

Detail of O Body, O Incarnation Bowl
(reassurance against cancer)
sewing pattern paper, epoxy resin, wire, paint pen

Why is it that once named a project seems more official?
More possible? Yet, the naming can not happen too soon
in the process. For me, that can be too limiting, too soon.

Maybe this is one reason why it freaks me out a little when
pregnant mothers name their unborn babies so soon and talk
to and about them with that name. I will look around and
wonder, "Who is this Henry she keeps talking about? He
sounds important. Oh right, the unborn baby." Too limiting,
too soon? Don't you want to see the child first? Of course,
the process of knowing and then naming happens through
more than just seeing. People tell me there are other senses
beyond seeing. Being visual, I can't really hear them...

So, back to the name, Reassurances: Incantation Bowls
Reimagined. We were ready to give this baby a name,
and we have some bowls and poems to show for it.
Here is what the title means to me, so far.

• Resassurances: comfort, removal of some doubt or fear
• Incantations: a rhythmic and thought-provoking poem
• Bowls: a concave vessel form, more difficult to create than you may think
• Reimagined: reinterpretation of an ancient art form, to form a new conception