Three Dimensional Emphasis
The sculptures and ceramic works
that I create explore storytelling, mythology, and emotion. I love the process of working with clay, and
the control that I have with it. Working
tools into clay, to get intricate details, helps me explore more of the
character in my sculptures.
Storytelling is an important part
of my process, by developing characters I am able to explore personalities and tales. I am interested in the complexity of characters
and how they can make stories come to life; I use character design as a vessel
for feelings, personalities, and narratives.
I create these characters so that people can have their own experiences
and interpretations of them.
Mythologies often include animal
hybrids to signify forces in nature.
Myths are stories that try to address many fundamental questions, like:
who am I, what am I, where am I going, what are the right and wrong things to
do, and where did everything begin? In an interview Bill Moyers conducted with
Joseph Campbell, Moyers stated, “Myths are stories of our search through the
ages for truth, for meaning, for significance. We all need to tell our story
and to understand our story. We all need to understand death and to cope with
death, and we all need help in our passages from birth to life and then to
death. We need for life to signify, to touch the eternal, to understand the mysterious,
to find out who we are.” In most of my
work I use hybrids to add more character and mystery to my figures.
In my current work I am using the
Celtic Ogham, or the language of trees, to signify mythology in my
creations. The Ogham is an old Druidic language
that was used for divination. The Druids
used important trees and plants to symbolize the letters in this language. In my “Ogham”
series in progress, each character will represent a tree or plant form and the
Ogham letter that corresponds to it. The
emotions and movement that I portray in these figures will help create more of
the narrative. My characters are
starting to get more expressive, they are not static, they are moving in some
way. Even if the art piece isn’t a full figure,
the emotions shown on their faces are very animated.
Storytelling, mythology, and
emotion are all signifiers of the unknown.
There are many aspects of life that are mysterious and strange, I am
able to explore some of these mysteries through creating my characters. The BFA program will help me to search for
more of the unknown, and develop a better understanding of sculpture and
ceramics.
