A mum-of-two and trained glassblower is using breast milk to create unique works of art.
Single mum Helen Hancock, 47, has developed a special technique to infuse human milk into molten glass at around 1150C.
Because every woman’s milk is unique – with a different fat content – each of Helen’s creations is different, with some looking like “spiders’ webs” while others are like “constellations of stars”.
Helen, from Derry, began experimenting with breast milk after having her own children and becoming a breastfeeding peer support counsellor, infant massage and baby yoga specialist, and doula.
She initially put out an appeal on a closed WhatsApp group of fellow mums and within hours women were turning up at her doorstep with bags of milk.
She even received a donation from a mother who’d recently lost a baby and was still lactating, which brought her to tears.
She says: “At one point my freezer was completely full. Breastmilk is beautiful, and natural, and should be celebrated. Breastfeeding is hard work when you grow up in a society that doesn’t see it as normal so the pieces I make have incredible sentimental value.”
Helen trained in glassblowing with artists in Seattle, USA, but stopped blowing glass in 2005 to focus on other things. She became a mum for the first time to Lily, now 12, three years later.
She had two more pregnancies in quick succession, but tragically lost her second baby, a little girl called Isla, at 26-weeks due to a rare chromosome disorder called Triploidy syndrome.
After a difficult birth with her son George, now 10, Helen struggled to breastfeed, finding it “excruciating”, but said she persevered because it helped her work through her trauma.
She explains: “It was a way of completing my bond with George. After losing Isla, I just needed that full-body connection and that solid presence of George. I actually fed him until he was two years old.”
She began training as a breastfeeding peer support counsellor after seeing a poster in her local health centre.
She forged a career supporting other women, offering birthing companion and baby massage services, but it wasn’t until she saw an article about a Canadian artist making glass breast bowls that she realised she could “join the dots” and use her skills as an artist too.
“It had been 12 years since I’d last blown glass,” she says. “I messaged the artist, Mel Scholtz, and she encouraged me, so I went into a hired studio and started making breast bowls for women to express into.”
When Helen began pondering whether it would be possible to blow breastmilk into glass, in 2017, she turned to her mummy friends for help.
She says: “I put a message on our closed WhatsApp group, asking if anyone might have a drop of spare milk I could use. I wasn’t sure what response I’d get – but so many women came knocking on my door with bags of milk.
“It was very experimental; my first attempts were all black and sludgy. Eventually I perfected a technique to infuse the milk into the glass without losing its white colour.
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“The results were beautiful. Once the glass has cooled the layers of milk are trapped and preserved forever, like the mosquito in amber in Jurassic Park.”
Then one of Helen’s fellow breastfeeding counsellors donated some milk after tragically losing her baby, asking if she could make a keepsake.
“That was incredibly emotional,” she admits. “The scent of every woman’s milk is slightly different and that’s why babies give off that sweet smell.
“When I began working with the milk, and caught the smell, I imagined her baby and there were a few tears.”
Now Helen makes bespoke glass pieces on commission for families using the milk they send her – including bowls, vases and paperweights.
She has also teamed up with jewellery designer Patrick McWilliams to set her glass into pendants and earrings.
She claims to be the only glassblower in the world making large-scale blown glass art infused with breastmilk.
She also works with ashes, placenta, and has even set her own children’s baby teeth into glass.
“Sometimes a husband will send me some of his wife’s milk that he’s sneaked from the fridge, to make a gift to surprise her,” Helen says.
“I also get a lot of commissions to make pieces in memory of babies who have passed away.”
In 2019, Helen ran a kickstarter fundraising campaign to build her own studio at home, and her original supporter Mel visited her from Canada and made a sizeable donation.
Her work has been exhibited at the London Glassblowing Gallery, where in 2019 she submitted a piece called Nature Does Not Bloom in Private – three huge glass breasts infused with donated milk.
She is currently making a new piece called Plantstyle for an exhibition on sustainability for the same gallery in June – although this one will not feature breast milk.
And her Nature Does Not Bloom in Private piece will be on display in Napoli, Italy, from June to August, in an exhibition called Nudo di Donna at The Spark Hub.
“Each of my pieces is different because every woman’s milk is different,” she says. “I feel incredibly overwhelmed and privileged whenever a woman trusts me to make something so precious for her.”
For more on Helen’s work visit www.helenhancockglass.com or @helenhancockglass on Facebook and Instagram.
