Inspirations

INSPIRATIONS

While editing this post I realized that the link leads to a dead end because the slide presentation was somehow deleted from my google drive.  This is a redone version of my original presentation and post.  

After giving my presentation and seeing others I realized how much I left out of my own. Somehow I left out one of the most important influences in my life who is my dad. My dad is a violin maker and repairer of stringed instruments and I spent a lot of my childhood playing around in his shop varnishing little pieces of wood. He grew up playing the violin and attended violin-making school in Utah, took apprenticeships under other luthiers, and eventually worked for Christie's Auction House for 14 years, working on instruments that could be over a hundred years. He is someone who encouraged me to pursue a life in the arts and has always believed in my talents and ideas.

                                            

I first got my hands on clay in elementary school while visiting a family friend who had her own pottery and sculpture studio in her basement where I made my first ever sculpture, a frog sitting on a lily pad eating a fly. I loved her abstract animal sculptures.

As far as pop culture goes growing up the usual influences such as Disney and Pixar movies have certainly impacted me as well as it is Nickelodeon's Spencer Shay from iCarly who really got me interested in sculpture and how fun and outrageous art could be. 

Ashley Lyon! NJCU professor who has helped mentor me through my interests in realism and large-scale sculpture. Her own work focuses on large-scale realism as well and she has been a wonderful person to learn from. 

Meteor,  Ashley Lyon

Developing as a sculptor began with realism to attempt to prove to myself what I was capable of and is now turning more toward an interest in experimental play.  What I have made resembles the work of the artists in my presentation like Kelly McLaughlin and Russell Wrankle. I love their clear imagery, techniques, concepts, and surfacing. 

                         

                  Second Guessing the Seconds, Russell Wrankle           Your'e Both/And Kelly McLaughlin

But I would like to step away from what is recognizable and might already carry preconceived meaning to an audience. Focus on form, function, and the space it exists in and what it can specifically evoke in people. I enjoy looking at the work of graphic illustrator Nadiia Pliamko because of how she creates an entire environment and then fills it with such playful maximalist shapes and colors to convey a full concept or even just a feeling. Similar to the work of graphic designer Joe Mortell, who also creates a digital space and fills it with a fantastical setting around a somewhat contemporary display of humanity like a dinner table or living room. It is an idea where function meets fantastic that I would like to incorporate into my work moving into more abstract furniture-like forms. Arlene Schechet is an artist who I found in the Art21 homework and took inspiration from how to begin translating this idea to the ceramic medium because of her shapes, gazes, and interesting ways of displaying her work in a space. 

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                         Nadiia Pliamko                                           Prarie Garden, 2020, Joe Mortell

                                                    

                                                 Moon in the Morning, 2022, Arlene Shechet

My Work:

                    Heart, 2022                                                            

  

                        Draped Pedestal, 2022