The story I selected for my apprentice book was none other than Cristina Henriquez’s “Everything is Far From Here. ” It spoke loudly to me as a white woman who has never been in such a raw and gutted position. To have your son ripped from you and then teased with the hope of getting him back while being dehumanized in a bustling, apathetic environment is appalling. The scene that stuck out most to me that I felt I could focus in on more in a couple of sentences was when our main character starts spiraling about her son. Henriquez uses repetition when she writes “What if she’s forgotten what he looks like?” And then, “What if it’s been too long?” But juxtaposes herself when she writes how she won’t let her character give into the negativities that surround her, “Don’t think like that. Don’t let yourself give way.” Because it’s not like she’s even able to “give way,” to crack in such an unstable environment. Especially when later in the story, every time she does, they lock her in a room until she “calms down.” In my apprentice book I represented this scene through the walls she’s been confined in by making my book out of clay. I selected this story over the other ones because it was such a stark contrast between myself and the character, but also because of how much the story moved me in general.  

I used ceramic instead of paper for my apprentice book to get the point across that the main character in “Everything is Far From Here” by Cristina Henriquez has been trapped behind these walls that are suffocating her with people feeding on her hope that her son will come back to her. I drew pictures of flowers and collaged them on each page in a way that still made the “walls” of my book visible, too. I researched flower language so that I was able to utilize symbolism for what she was feeling, as well. I drew a lot of flowers since it felt more personal than printing them, and I felt that making a collage on each page out of them added to the chaos that surrounded our main character. In all, there are lilies to represent loss, carnations to represent motherhood, buttercups and baby’s breath to represent children (more specifically her son), forget-me-nots to represent her holding onto her son’s memory, lavender to represent the past and her nostalgia for her son, irises to represent her hope, and amsonia to represent her strength. My hope is that through my apprentice book, you’ll be able to visualize everything the story, and character as a mother, has stood for while she’s inside of the walls. At first, I wanted each wall to be a different color but I decided that would be too much going on and distract the reader by focusing them on the vibrance over the central message of the story. I didn’t glaze the ceramic because it would have taken too much time, but also because in the story I felt that the walls sapped our character’s individuality and had them stay mundane to emphasize her repeated negativities through lack of color, as well.