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.