Project 3 - Artist Statement

Relief Cabinet

(view with lights off)

I struggle with anxiety, as do many others. Over the years, I have found several things that help me cope and deal with my anxiety. Inside of this magical little cabinet, you will find each one that I hold near and dear to my heart. These are things that I do not want to lose, things that I want to hold on to. We put things inside jars to keep and preserve them. We open them when we need them.

The cabinet itself brings about mystery. You have to open this strange, glowing box. The outside design is a paisley like design that I love and feel it is a self-portrait in a way. When you open the magnet box, the lights from the back of the box illuminate the jars and make them mysterious and intriguing.

With the lights off and the music of a very playful, mystifying, and slightly creepy music box, you can have a very intimate experience with this piece. You must use the light from the box to read the labels and look at it's contents. You can remove the jars and examine each, learning a little about me and the contents with each label's description.


Much like a medicine cabinet, "Relief Cabinet" helps me cope with illness. It is an individual experience.



The music is the instrumental "Once Upon A December" from Anastasia.

Here is a link to view the video: Relief Cabinet

Note: (My phone's video camera does not capture the glow in the dark detailing on the outside of the box, but it was my attempt to show the experience. It's much cooler in person! [And you can actually see everything in person, the video doesn't do it justice.] Sorry, I just feel like crap today. I didn't want to spread anything!)

Project 3 - part 3

Making the box for these to go in was a lot more difficult than I anticipated. I went through several ideas of how to make them fit inside a box I found, but it came down to me having to make them out of foam core.

I put the lights inside the box and covered it with a piece of silver tissue paper. I wanted it to seem magical and intriguing. The lights really set this off.

I wasn't sure what I was going to do on the outside of the box. I really loved the design it had on it, so I didn't want to paint over it. I was going to put paper over it and put a design on it in glow-in-the-dark paint, but I decided I really just loved the outside of the box by itself.

(Sorry for the janky order of pictures on this post. I'm not sure why I can't seem to get them to do what I want, haha.)

The box without shelves and without
tissue paper!

I ended up putting the glow paint
on the outside design. (lights off)

The struggle!!

The outside was just too pretty!
I love paisley too! (with lights on)

The inside of the box with the lights, tissue paper,
and the shelves. (Main light off)

Project 3 - part 2

After I decided to make things that I wanted to keep in the jars, I thought about the things that I go to during my anxiety. The first and foremost is my fiance, Erick. He helps me so much. (Unless, of course, I'm anxious because of him, haha.) Another safehaven is making art, specifically wheel throwing or using clay in general. It has helped me so much over the past year and I feel like the ceramics world is where I belong. A silly thing I love, as I'm young at heart, is glitter in water. It's not only pretty, but it's just so cool to look at! Glitter jars make me happy and help me breathe. The main reason I'm young at heart is because of Disney; it reminds me of a time in my life where I didn't have all the anxieties that I do as a young adult. And last, but not least, the ocean makes me lose all sadness and worry I've ever had. I love the ocean, the water, everything aquatic or water related.

So there were my jar ideas: Erick, art, glitter jar, Disney, and the ocean.

I collected a few things for each jar to represent them.

The glitter jar after it settles.
The back of it's label says, "Shake."

Ceramics jar. Full of broken ceramic
pieces from my ceramics 1 class.

My dearest Erick. Inside this jar are our tickets
to our first date, a few different rose petals that
have fallen off the ones I have kept,
and a photo roll of us in a photobooth
from our friends wedding.

The ocean. It has sand and some shells
that aren't from a beach. It also has a crab
carcass and a sea shell covered in barnacles
that I got off Whidbey Island, WA.

Disney! This jar has an autograph I got
from Ariel in Disney World,
Ariel's dress, and Flounder.

Project 3 - part 1

For weeks I struggled with ideas for this project. I was having what seemed to be a constant anxiety attack. I couldn't think straight, I couldn't sleep well. I was struggling with more than just school.

I had a few ideas go in and out of my head about projects about anxiety. I thought about possible ideas using a fish bowl, putting things inside that bowl as they were trapped and we stared at it like it was a piece in a gallery. (Which, hypothetically, it is...)

After a few weeks of hating my ideas and feeling really lost, I decided to start with putting things in jars instead of a fish bowl, putting multiple things inside a jar. I thought about putting them inside some sort of cabinet, something that opens up to reveal it is much more than what it appears.

As the week went by, I collected a few things at a time. Sometimes I wasn't sure if I was going to even use them, but I thought they'd be cool somehow. I got 6 jars, some labels on strings, and some small stringed lights. I decided that instead of putting bad things inside the jars, to keep good things inside them as to preserve them, things that I didn't want to let get away from me.

This picture is actually upside down for some reason,
but it shows the idea I had to put them inside something.

This picture shows my anxiety word map, the idea for the label, the jars and I had thought about a suitcase or brief case like box.

Project 2: Artist Statement

I have been a tea drinker for a while now. It started back during my senior year of high school; I have several teas that "taste" like a chilly day of 2012. My tea love followed me into college and my mum recently bought me a tea pot that was a "tea for one" pot where everything was boiled and steeped in the same pot and the bottom of the pot was also a tea cup. This, along with my many other tea pots at my house (I seriously have 3 and I live alone, haha), inspired this project.
I made the model for the casting by throwing it on the wheel in separate parts: the round body, the spout and the lid. Afterwards I made a little lid. However for the casting, I cut that pot in half.
I projected a 15 second stop motion animation of water boiling over a gas fire burner with the water turning into steam and then creating a small heart shape before evaporating.
I was surprised with how well it all turned out in the end considering I didn't have much time prior to critique to actually experiment with the projection. The distance between the casting and the wall created a shadow and a depth that was surprisingly nice.
I'm happier with the end result more so than I expected. I do enjoy stop motion animation, but I think the whole "steam" aspect was a bit overly ambitious and I was unaware of how difficult it would actually be.
I learned a lot about materials in stop motion during this project and I hope to put those skills to use as we continue this class!

Project 2: part 2

Here's a snap shot of my janky set up for filming (arial view). (Ignore my onesie pants and my fuzzy socks...)

After I made my casting of the tea pot, I traced an outline of it on white card stock. After I cut that out, I taped it onto my background. I used black fabric to create the "stove" where the "flames" would be. I used some canvas pieces to create water inside the tea pot and then used light colored tulle for the beginning stages of steam and then some doll stuffing (no I didn't take it out of an actual doll..) for the later stages of steam. I used (get this) painted pieces of a ripped Kroger bag for the flames and them took some clear tape and taped it around so that there was a long side of the tape at the bottom that I used to move in and out in every frame.
When filming, my iPad would be sitting on the edge of the chair. My bucket is there because I put a lamp on top of it to add light. The fabric was being held by some fabric weights.
I chose the red patterned fabric to create a warm, Saturday morning feeling during the cold months. I found Christmas fabric to be too distracting although the tulle did show up well against some of the darker colors. I ended up choosing the red fabric because it looked winter-y without yelling winter or Christmas. It reminded me of pajamas or a blanket you'd be curled up in while drinking the tea brewing in the pot.

Project 2: Finale

Unedited footage

Unfortunately, my computer doesn't want me to upload my edited video right now, but I will upload it when it will. For now, enjoy my rough draft. I'm surprisingly happy with the turnout once it was projected onto my casting. It gave it a lot more depth.
Also, I don't have a picture of it because I forgot my phone at home the day of critique.

Project 2: part 1

Considering I'm in Wheel 1 and have never thrown a tea pot before, I don't think I did too bad.

 My idea started with some sketches of a tea pot and turned into this. I thought about doing a 2 piece mold to make the actual paper casting a 3D casting, but decided against it. I ended up cutting this pot in half with a wire tool and casting just half a tea pot. I was worried about the undercuts from the sides and handle, but the casting turned out surprisingly well.
My idea for the projection of video was to show water boiling inside the pot and then the steam coming out using stop motion animation. At first I thought I'd use watercolors to achieve this look, but thank God I didn't do that because that would've been soooo hard, haha. I ended up using different fabrics.

Project 1: Artist Statement

This project was made of many casting of different shapes and sizes of shark dorsal fins and shark teeth. A short, looped video was projected onto an installation of the castings shaped into a shark's open jaws in the corner of the gallery room. The video was mapped into an oval and fit "inside" the shark's mouth; the video is an abstract expression of the life of a shark. At first, there is calm, peaceful blue food coloring dancing through the water. A few more drops are added, and then red food coloring comes in and takes over. This part becomes a little overkill, unfortunately. It takes on too much of a "JAWS" feel, and not enough about the shark and it's suffering and abuse. I honestly regret not doing something that geared it more in that direction.
I wanted to convey the mistreatment of sharks and their lives in many different ways, but I could have gone in other routes that would have better expressed those issues: sharks are often hunted for their dorsal fins. Hunters will remove the dorsal fin and then release the shark back into the ocean, leaving them to die. Sharks also have many, many teeth that wash up on beaches and shores. In my piece, the teeth represent our ignorance towards the mistreatment, where the single dorsal fins represent the fins that are removed so viciously. These animals are not always the predators we see often portray them as in movies. We need to realize that they are actually more often the victim.
I enjoyed the struggle this project presented me with. I have never worked with paper pulp, nor have I projected something onto my artwork before. It taught me a lot about the medium and about exploring more options. There are many things I wish I could have changed about my final presentation, but I'm happy with the amount that I learned from it!

Project 1: part 4

After a few more castings and finalizing my video, critique rolled around. (I don't have any photos and I apologize for that. I was busy talking and being awkward during critique.) It was the first time that I really got to put my video up with my castings and it was really underwhelming. I realized that I had a great concept, but didn't execute it well enough and that the red food coloring in my video was a bit overpowering. I attached the castings at an angle on the walls and floor in the corner using wet clay. I really think that having more castings would have helped my project as it would have helped create the "open mouth" illusion that I wanted. I also mapped my video into an oval shape. In the end, I should have had the video project more on the bright white castings, but there are lots of things that could have been better.
It's a learning process and I learned a lot from this project, not only as a paper pulp caster and a video artist, but as an artist in general.
I have attached the youtube link for the unedited footage for my video! Shark Tank video (unedited)

Project 1: part 3

Time to brainstorm videos for the projection! I made some notes in my sketchbook: "paint flowing", "shark video", "stop motion", "water video + layer video of red food coloring". I also remember Alice suggesting that I project my precious goldfish onto my project. (Which, looking back, it would have made a whole different aspect!)
I decided I always wanted to experiment with water and food coloring, so I went that route for the video projection. I used a clear container, a white backdrop, jury-rigged tripod for my phone, water and food coloring. Here are a few stills from my trial runs.


On another note: my first castings came out great! They popped right out without much struggle. Now to cast about 5 more times!

First time paper-pulp casting!

A clean cast all around! Very excited!

Project 1: part 2

My heart and soul is connected to aquatic life and their environments. I love to teach others about the mistreatment they experience.  Usually my work is based on goldfish or oceanic invertebrates, so the shark is a complete opposite of my normal domesticated animal work. The domestic vs the wild is a whole other project that I'd love to explore.

My idea behind this project was that sharks are not necessarily always the predator. Unfortunately, sharks are often hunted for their dorsal fins to make "fin soup". After the hunters cut off their dorsal fins, they release them back into the ocean, leaving the shark to die. On the other hand, "JAWS" and the recent Blake Lively movie, "The Shallows", portray sharks as vicious to all human life. Yet, we find their teeth washed up on shore and don't blink an eye. I'm not saying that that is a bad thing, as long as you are not killing the animals specifically for their teeth or their fins. 

Poured the plaster mold!

Project 1: part 1

Alice said keep it simple. My brain went from all sorts of ideas, but ended up thinking about the Sydney Opera House. The shapes reminded me of a shark's dorsal fin. That is where the idea for my project was born.
I started sculpting dorsal fins out of clay and soon added shark teeth as well. I came up with the idea to create a large dorsal fin out of collaged smaller fins with a few rows of shark teeth in front of the fin.
This idea was then given a different take: Kaitlin said she thought I had the idea to create a shark mouth on the floor in the corner and create the illusion of a shark's open jaws. (Shoutout to Kaitlin for that awesome suggestion!!) That isn't what I had in mind originally, but I liked her idea so I ran with it.  

Original sketches. You can see my original idea with the giant dorsal fin, and then my further developed idea with the open jaws.

Clay models before making the mold.