Artwork

     Even at the birth of a child, the possibility of death is still a reality; with new life, comes death. My concentration focuses on this certainty. Death is always present, and the older we get, the larger the impact it makes on our existence. Death inevitably consumes all life bringing the once beautiful to an unwanted end. I chose to represent this gradual yet unavoidable decomposition through the digression of almost completely white, functional pieces to blackened, mangled, sculptural forms.

     The evolution of my concentration is visible through the transition from purely functional to completely abstract pieces. Functional pieces serve as vessels containing "life" and through the progression of my concentration that vessel is destroyed. The slow yet unavoidable digression each piece experiences one after the next conveys a sense of hopelessness and despair as the reality becomes clear; nothing escapes its eventual demise. Images (1) and (2) represent the beginning of new life; I included in the design a small imperfection symbolizing that death is always present, even at conception. Images such as (5) and (7), which are near the middle of my concentration, show how death becomes more of a burden on the living as time moves on causing cracks and deformities in the pieces. The last few forms in this collection are representative of a person's final moments of life; "death" erupts from within (9), constricts us (10), and consumes what little vitality we have left (11). An important goal of mine this year was to improve my throwing skills and complete my entire concentration on the potter's wheel. Once I had mastered creating functional pieces, I began to use the wheel as a stepping stone for reaching my final design. As soon as I began to change the generic forms I threw, I felt as though I had a deeper connection with the work I was creating.