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Plaster of parents
By CURTIS KRUEGER, Times Staff Writer Swollen feet. Nausea. Backaches. Fatigue. Insomnia, kicks to the ribs, a body that won't stop growing or stop sweating in the Florida heat. You can understand why some women would rather forget the final weeks of pregnancy. Jamie Kane and Gabriella Lagemann want them to remember it. The two Pinellas women make life-sized, plaster of Paris casts of their client's pregnant torsos and decorate the casts with paint, rhinestones and ribbons. The cost: from $150 to $450, depending on how elaborate the decorations. Once completed, the women deliver the casts -- seatbelted in the car, of course -- so the new mothers can display the artwork at home. Instead of forgetting those last bloated months, these "belly sculptures" help women immortalize them. "I think pregnant women are beautiful," said Kane, a 40-year-old mother of two from Largo. She has made about a dozen plaster belly casts. The sculptures are "just a way of preserving that special time in their life." For generations, moms and dads have bronzed their infants' tiny booties and snipped their downy curls, lifelong mementos of their children's first months in the world.
Now, some mothers want mementos of their babies' last months before entering the world. Nationally broadcast television shows have featured belly sculptors. Various Web sites offer home kits for sale. Kane started her business about a year ago, and Lagemann joined her a couple of months ago. Others locally have made casts as well. "You either absolutely love it or it's not for you -- there is no middle ground," said Lagemann, the 33-year-old Belleair Beach artist who paints and decorates most of the finished plaster bellies that Kane makes. Tiffany Avey loved it. She first saw belly sculptures this summer on Oprah and saw how "all the actors and the stars were getting them done." She asked the instructor of her childbirth class where to get one. Turns out the instructor was Kane, who was beginning her sculpting career. Avey, 26 and about to give birth for the first time, waited patiently while Kane smeared Vaseline onto her bulging belly and applied cloth strips dipped in plaster of Paris. It felt "kind of slimy." When it dried sufficiently, Kane pulled off a white shell of plaster. Afterward, Kane applied another coat of plaster, let it dry, and repeated the process, which generally takes 10 to 14 days. Although Lagemann designs most of the sculptures, Kane decorated this one herself with a mosaic of blue glass. Now the sculpture hangs in the bedroom of Avey's 6-month-old daughter Olivia. Avey has held the bulbous cast next to her body, amazed to see she was so big. "Although you may not feel beautiful, I think when you look back it's the most beautiful time of your life when you're pregnant," said Avey, who babysits Kane's children. Avey said she thinks her daughter will love the sculpture in her room, once she can understand what it means. Avey has seen a picture taken the day before her birth that shows her own mother dressed in a bikini. "I would love to have seen a cast of her." Avey said the idea of belly sculptures is to "capture the moment with your baby inside of you." Lagemann often is left to her own devices for the artwork. She painted one belly burgundy, to match a master bedroom. She glued hundreds of glass beads on another, to make a design of a smiling sun. Sometimes a baby kicks during the casting, leaving a little dent. It's safe to say that Kane and Lagemann are baby people. They have always liked little ones, always wanted to be moms. Kane and her husband have two daughters, Lagemann and hers have two sons. Kane teaches childbirth classes and works as a "doula," performing chores at home for women who have just given birth. Catherine Barber, a physician's assistant, had a special reason for wanting a belly cast. She and her husband, David, have wanted children for 10 years. When Kane and Lagemann came to her house last month with Vaseline and plaster, Barber was pregnant with twins. "These are some miracle babies," she said. Getting the cast was "art capturing the process of motherhood."
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