Catherine Newton loves hugs so much she captures them by clutching blobs of 900-degree Celsius molten glass to her chest.
Wearing a firefighting suit and holding a heatproof blanket, the Canberra artist lies down and wraps her arms around a hot glass vessel.
As the glass cools, it maintains the shape of her hug.
"Even though I am clothed in layers of heatproof fabric the act of hugging the glass is strangely intimate," she said.
"It's almost like a process of giving birth — you're lying down and you've got this great big hot bubble coming towards you and you're going to hug it. It's an interesting process."
Motherhood birthed artist's interest in hugs
After spending more than 20 years as a stay-at-home mother raising her four children, Ms Newton decided to study glass at the Australian National University's School of Art.
It was her experience as a mother and her relationship with her children that she wanted to capture in her artwork.
"It developed from the importance of touch and the importance of hugging the kids each day," she said.
"I really love hugging and I think it says a lot.
"And maybe I'm not as eloquent in my speech as what I am with giving a person a hug."
Ms Newton has crafted dozens of colourful hugs, and no two are the same.
As part of a residency at Canberra Glassworks, she worked with 15 other mothers to create an exhibition of hugs.
Each mother chose a colour for the glass that reflected their child, and then blew the vessel for Ms Newton to embrace.
"As we were making the hugs, we thought about each child we were making," she said.
"It was the mother's breath inflating the hug.
"Her breath was captured within and then the hug was made."
It is this love and connectedness captured within the glass that Ms Newton hopes people feel when they see her hugs.
"I want them to think about their mothers, or mothers to think about their children, and recall happy memories. I want people to call their mum and say "Hi, I love you".
Missing hugs during the COVID-19 pandemic
The artworks are a fitting reminder of the warmth of hugs during these times of social distancing.
Ms Newton's own daughter moved from Canberra to Sydney to work as a nurse just before the COVID-19 restrictions began.
"With the lockdown, she was cut off from the family and we weren't able to see her or have any physical contact with her," Ms Newton said.
"She was alone in this new world in Sydney and she said to me on the phone one day 'Oh mum I just want a hug from you, I just want to feel your arms around me'.
"That importance of having a hug from another person is something that I'm sure many people are missing at this time.
"I'm looking at how people are affected by not being able to touch, not being about to hug."
We are hardwired to crave hugs and touch
Ms Newton is far from alone in her love of hugs.
Clinical psychologist at the University of Canberra, Dr Vivienne Lewis, said humans were hardwired to seek out human touch, and hugging played an important role.
"When we hug someone, that physical contact releases a hormone in the body called oxytocin," she said.
"Oxytocin makes us feel warm and nice. It makes us feel relaxed, feel positive. So psychologically we feel like we can trust a person, we feel warm towards a person and we can feel that love effect.
"That's why people go back for more. For human beings, it's important to have regular touch."
Ms Lewis said those lacking regular touch felt more stressed, sad, disconnected and lonely, and they craved touch — a need also known as "skin hunger".
"Somebody in the middle of COVID-19, living by themselves and they've had no contact with anybody else, their skin is actually craving touch, and craving that feeling of being warm, and being loved and being cared for," she said.
For now, Ms Newton hopes the sight of her glass hugs brings some warmth to those currently isolated due to coronavirus restrictions.
Ms Lewis expects people will have an overwhelming urge to hug others when they are finally able to in the coming weeks or months.
"People will be immediately hugging others as soon as they see them," she said.
"You'll probably find people are a bit more touchy-feely, now more than ever."
