Portfolio

"He Loves me Not"
Raku, Ceramics
The inspiration for this piece is very obvious in my opinion. The hand forms the I love you sign while the finger tips become flowers. Some flowers of the petals are missing, alluding to the childhood game of picking the petals off of flowers, chanting "He loves me, he loves me not" and so on until all of the petals are missing.

"hourglass figure"

When I designed this piece, my main inspiration was death. The colors black and white are common symbols for death (black because of decay and white because of the white light you see). The color red is less commonly used in referencing death, but it is the color of blood and poppies. I made paper poppies because poppies have symbolized "eternal sleep" for many years (just watch the wizard of Oz). You get the point. Death everywhere. After a while that felt a little bit too freshman-angst-esque. So it's about death so what? What else? Is death good, is it bad? My problem is that I have a hard time making definite statements out of my personal opinions. Learning about art throughout the times and being in AP art, I've learned that if you have a piece that makes a statement then you have to MAKE THE STATEMENT. You have to talk about your opinions like they're facts. So my final statement on this piece goes as follows:

The "Hourglass Figure" was meant to illustrate the effect of wasting time. The hourglass is the symbol of time. The Death symbols (as I previously discussed) are meant to symbolize the effects of wasting time, procrastinating, etc. The effect is that death comes to all of us eventually...we must do the best that we can in this life because it does not last forever. (He happens to be in a school desk, not because I feel like school is a waste of time...but actually I do...senioritis).

"Only Thee do I love"

This piece was inspired by the flowers of an Arbutus, which in some cultures symbolizes love, loyalty, hence the title "Only Thee do I Love". I endowed my busts with Arbutus crowns and necklaces to show this loyalty.

"Potted fern" was inspired by the Kodama, Tree Spirits in the animated film "Princess Mononoke"

"Dissolve"

For this piece I had to concentrate on movement. This piece was inspired by liquidity, because what shows more movement than liquid, you feel. I chose a single color for this piece so the audience wasn't distracted from the liquid quality, especially of the back.

"Original Home"

This piece was inspired by a conversation I had with one of my friends a few months ago, that I found particularly touching. My friend talked about how we find cities beautiful, and nature frightening, because we've evolved in way that leads us to technology and human settlement for protection and comfort. We thought about how sad that is considering that nature was our original home in the time of Adam and Eve, or the beginning of humanity, whichever way you personally look at it, and now we're destroying it. Anyway my piece shows a human head growing trees, which become the home for these birds. I wanted to show the connection that humans have with nature and how we can either destroy it or help it.

"Violet"

I made these pieces last year and there wasn't really any inspiration, haha :-)

"Man's Creation of God"

This piece was a take off of the Sistine Chapel's "Creation of Adam". throughout art history, God has been portrayed by artists who have shown him based on the belief of the time. This has led many people to believe that we can understand and comprehend God, when in reality, these pieces are the speculations and interpretation of MEN. It's my personal belief that God is so divine that we can't possibly comprehend him. If we could, we would probably be afraid rather than worshiping. All of the hands emerging, interrupting the basic form of creation, are meant to symbolize the many religions and interpretations of God. To me religion is simple, but the world has over complicated it. Like I said before, these are my personal religious beliefs and if you disagree, that's totally okay with me! And I would love to hear what you think about my beliefs, what yours are, and what you think about my work!

CONCENTRATION:

The central idea for my concentration is the universe, commonly referred to as 'space', and the relationship that Earthlings have with it. Almost every element on Earth was made in the heart of a star millions of years ago. Humanity and everything around is essentially made out of stardust. Space is a part of us, and since the beginning of time we have desired to become a part of it whether it's religiously, spiritually, scientifically or any other motive.

Since Earthlings are composed of the elements produced by stars, I wanted to represent the extraterrestrial heritage of tellurian beings by combining aspects of space with earth organic forms, and man-made everyday objects. I also aimed to criticize humanity's quest for a relationship with space. Because of our superior intellect, we seem to overestimate our abilities and knowledge. We have no affect on the cosmos. We think that we understand space, but in reality our knowledge is basic, and the universe is eternal.  I tried to portray this childish understanding, by using elementary colors and  cartoon-style forms in many of my pieces. The cartoon-style forms are lacking in details which reflects humanity's perception of the universe; lacking.

Black Hole, Isolation