Emma Churchill

Coronash
lead heart fishing weights, silver wire, glass rolling pin

Emma Churchill is most often associated with large-scale sculpture and installation. As she researched the Newlyn School paintings she became acutely aware of the hardship of the lives of the women, who often had to bear the burdens of extreme poverty, a harsh working environment and austere domestic conditions alone, whilst their husbands went to sea.
 
Churchill took two 4 ounce lead fishing weights and formed these into a lead heart, its weight similar to that of a female human heart. The implications of a lead heart are obvious, but additionally in alchemy and magic, lead is the metal of Saturn (numerically 3), the planet of austerity and sorrow. The planet of the heart, love and relationships is Venus (numerically 7). 

Attached to this, replacing the normal catgut fishing line, is 21 grammes of silver cord. This is the alleged weight the body loses in the moment between life and death (supposedly the weight of the soul), the combination of 3 x 7. Silver is also the metal of the moon, the planet that governs women and femininity. The moon rules the sea and the tides.