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Title: Life
Medium: Clay and Found Object Size: 10x28cm Date: April 2016 Exhibition Text: Inspired by Henri Rosseau’s jungles, and the sikh gurdwara design, childhood memories were explored in this piece. A time where things were much simpler and the world much smaller because we were bigger. Age is exemplified by flowers. So is life itself and the beginning of something new. Realize that parts of life will die but life will always be present. The cycle of life and death one cannot neglect nor can one become so attached that change completely devastates them.
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Planning: This is the first project I concentrated on after a break from art. Since my last piece displayed sadness I did not want to fall into the habit of displaying negative feeling through my art. I decided to focus on a sacred memory which would aid in making this piece full of life. I knew I did not have much time but I really did want to have the piece hold something inside of it. I wanted to make a pot but one with an unique shape. I focused on a 'tuwell' which is a pipe used in agricultural settings such as my hometown in Barara, Haryana, India. I have treasured memories centered around my hometown and this is what I chose to display. The tuwell shape would be the base and it would morph into leaves swaying the breeze. This transition from an industrial object to nature indicates the importance of both to co-exist with one another, which they did in my hometown. Furthermore on my trip to India, I visited the Golden Temple. The Temple's exterior and interior carvings into the wall inspired me to do something similar on my piece. Furthermore Rosseau's jungles gave the artwork a symbolism value which conveyed the emphasis of life. The petals, leaves and flowers are sculpted disproportionately to actual real life sizes so they take up most of the empty area on the pot. The effect this creates is no matter which angle you view the piece, you will see Rosseau's symbolism in the form of large flowers and natural growth on an industrial pipe, "tuwell".
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Process: For this piece I took wet clay and through the mixer, workable clay was formed. From there on I separated the clay into two quantities and wedged both. One significantly smaller than the other, these two pieces went through the roller where they were flattened. Using a tube, I wrapped the larger clay slab around, and used slip and scoring to attach it. Now that it looked like a hollow tube, I closed one end by attaching the smaller slab piece by the method of slipping and scoring. Now that the 'tuwell' was formed. I made very crude shapes of leaves on the top. Afterwards I found it easier to take these off and work individually on each leaf. Inscribing into the leaves took very long at first and then as I became accustomed to the process, I sped up by about 5 minutes. I used a pencil to inscribe the xylem on the leaves both inside and out. The leaves were then kept moist and bent to give the top a more feminine look with the organic lines. Next, they were attached using slip and score. This was repeated 7 times. I found the tube to be lacking so I added a vine with blooming flowers and disproportionate leaves. The design on the tube was done last. The original intention was to carve away everything but the design so the design pops out as this is how it is done in temples. However I found that task to be too arduous so instead I carved in with some aspects of the design and then added lines using the end of a steel fork. I could not replicate the design completely so I focused on the element of symmetry and made up a design of my own. I added 5 of these around the tube.
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Experience: Working with the clay on a more intimate level, I realized that clay is definitely something I would love to work with more in the future. When inscribing into the clay, it was crucial that the peels of clay which curled up as the pencil continued its path, be removed. If they were kept on, the xylem would look very slapdash. I tried finding shortcuts around this as this would take up so much of my time but I was unsuccessful. The leaves were too fragile and thin for me to stab into them. Working with great care, I paid attention to which parts of the pot I should leave uncovered so they dry quicker and which ones I should expose to the air for better stability and a better overall working experience. I kept the top moist as I didn't want some leaves to dry and crack as the possibility of accidentally knocking them over with my hand existed. I also kept the bottom moist as I didn't want a heavier top collapsing the entire pot. After every day of work I would make sure to wet newspaper and put it over the pot as to seal in moisture. I would follow that up by tying the plastic bag it was in.
Critique: This piece receives many mixed feelings from me. After it was fired, the pot looked too filled with life. It was to the point where the abundance of life saturated the genuine feeling of subtle life that I wanted to express. I could have made a more intricate design along the tube. Next time if I'm inscribing, I would add texture by carving in everything except the design. However, a great success came with the found object. The flowers were put into the pot which could hold water. These real yellow flowers gave a bright, happy feeling. The color takes attention away from the pot for which I am grateful for. The transition from the pipe to leaves on top could have been exaggerated more with a greater 'swaying' effect. After some work had been done on the pot, I found out that the circular shape was becoming deformed. Due to mishandling the tube was not perfectly circular which took away from the opposites I wished to create with the leaves and the tube. One disappointment straight from the beginning was the diameter of the tube. I had wished to make it smaller and taller except it turned out excessively wide and short. These dimensions took away from the aesthetic I had in my mind.
Word Count: 1085