Vacancy

The last 4 months have been a time of experimentation and exploration for me. I spent time looking at the expressive narrative works of Roxanne Swentzell, the ethereal sculptures of Christina Bothwell, the pottery of Beatrice Wood, and practicing new mediums of cast glass and sculptural ceramics. It has been one of the most exciting times in my life as an artist.  

This semester I focused on two sculptures. The first sculpture was a woman doll figure sitting, staring blankly; she sits next to the cast glass dollhouse that I started early on in the semester. This was a reflection of my current life stage as I watch my friends start families and reflection on the memories of my childhood. My grandmother loved dolls and gave me very nice dolls that were not for playing, but for viewing. My parents made me a dollhouse as a little girl; it was the gateway to my favorite imaginative memories of my childhood and it holds a special place in my heart. I haven’t glazed the woman yet, but I will likely glaze her in white and cool colors. I enjoy showing the removal of interaction and life between objects that should be working together as a way of articulating my interest in being half-vacant and half-present as a person in a given moment. I remember once my grandmother telling me that I always seemed like I was in another world as I often stared off into space as a child. That has stuck with me and it has become a factor in the sculptures that I create.

My second sculpture this semester was made up of many parts. I have the clay woman who is leaning over the fence feeding rabbits. It is a representation of my grandmother who was widowed with 3 children under the age of 9. She raised them all on her own, putting them all through college. The rabbits represent her 3 children (one of which is my father), and the glass fence posts are the challenges that she had to overcome to take care of them.

In this sculpture, I am experimenting more with multiple pieces that work together. I am also playing with media more by creating cast glass ears for the rabbits and the glass fence posts. The ears are still in progress, but you can see the woman, the fence posts, and earless rabbits below.  This sculpture took entirely too much time as I figured out stability issues and struggled with my design, but I am excited to finish it. I have to hold the woman up because I am firing the feet and separately and will epoxy them together. She has a few details to be complete, but is almost there. 

Christina Bothwell is the artist I have been influenced by the most this semester. Her focus is on childhood and the vulnerability of children. She creates cast glass and ceramic sculptures that are strange yet beautifully crafted and captivating. Her work has had a powerful impact on me as I consider how to use my new media in interesting ways. I especially appreciate her ability to create pieces that evoke a spiritual sense to them.

Since creating the doll sculpture, I have been moving towards creating pieces that show figures/animals in another world. For my next sculpture I will be making a little girl sitting at a table with a birthday hat and glass rabbit ears. She will be sitting at a clear table with a cast glass birthday cake. I want her to represent being half in the real world of an exciting moment, half vacant in her own imaginary world.

Overall, I have been eager to see where my work has been taking me. This has been a tremendous leap for me. I have learned a lot about myself: about how I often place unrealistic expectations on myself and how I work more slowly than I think I should. However, through this encouraging community I have learned to appreciate the growth and transformation that is occurring slowly but surely in my work. I am eager to see what is next.