Artist Statement – Ceramics
Over the course of my senior year I began to explore ceramics more and more. I ultimately decided to dive deeper into designing bowls and other forms with intricate 3D hand drawings on them. I had never done something like this before. By adding more clay to an already thrown piece, I created a new type of design to my bowls and vases.Throughout the year my vision took off and this idea was what I decided to create my portfolio around. My sustained investigation developed into a combination of two things I love to do, drawing and ceramics. On my first set of bowls I began using the slip bottle to do Henna type designs, because I loved how intricate they were and thought that would create such an interesting texture to the outside and inside of my bowls. This pushed my abilities to turn a simplistic bowl or vase into something beautiful.
I chose to branch off of the Henna type designs. I have always loved intricate, complicated, beautiful designs. As I continued to explore and develop my slip drawings, I made sure to use glazes that would only enhance the 3D drawings and make them pop. Each of the drawings that I drew on my bowls were completely my own with little influences of traditional Henna designs. This experience of creating my portfolio, showed me to trust my own abilities to make something beautiful and unique to my vision and personality through art.
Artist Statement – Drawing & Painting
My portfolio is made up of a series of black and white scratchboard drawings of different species of birds. I chose scratch board because I thought it was an interesting medium that I had never used before, that could allow me to create an interesting texture to depict the real life textures of birds. I chose to draw birds because of their intricate textures and patterns that I could replicate with just a scratching tool and paper, while giving them a bold look of white against a strong black background. My inspiration for this portfolio was white doves, because their all white body beautifully stood out in any background, along with the perception that they bring peace, serenity and happiness. I wanted to bring this characteristic of birds and express it through simplistically colored black and white intricate drawings.