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Once a professor told me that we all come from the stars. This piece plays with the ideas surrounding evolution and the mystery of the universe. The sculpture is split into two parts: our earthly existence at the base, and the space beyond on the top. The bottom portion is hive-shaped, referencing a working community or living condition. It stands two and a half feet tall and one and a half foot at its widest point. The shape of the piece as a whole also references grain storage barrels that are handmade out of clay by ancient tribes. The glaze is rough, dry, and abrasive. The colors are earth tones and are meant to give a feeling of earthly terrain. Protruding from the side of the piece is a nest holding gourd-like ovals. One is broken open revealing a seed that references the continual birth and death cycles of life.
I built this piece contemporaneously with “The Great Bear” at the Oregon College of Art and Craft over the summer of 2003. The studio was so hot that I wasn’t comfortable working on them for several days. The pieces were drying so fast there, making it difficult for me to keep adding the layers that I needed to. I had originally wanted both these pieces to be one continuous piece (Stars and Bear). But I had to trace around the top of the rim for size and go home and build the tops. It was the first time I had made sectioned pieces, so I didn’t even know if they were going to fit once I had finished. Thankfully the Clay Goddess was on my side and they turned out just fine.
I play with the mixing of scale, things that are small or large, present or not present. There is a stairway that leads to the top and ends at a cave like entrance into the piece. The stairs and opening is obviously too small for the large monkey figure perched on top, so I am alluding to another creature that we cannot see. The top dome of the piece is created from several layers of deep blue and black, sprinkled with white star specs painted in encaustic wax. The transparency of the wax gives the feeling of outer space and the galaxy. I carved and filled stars and star charting lines to reference the constellations. This is my childlike wonder as I look into the heavens and wonder what is out there. The side pocket where the monkey finds seed represents the unknown space outside of our earth and the possibility of discovery. The monkey, in myth, is known to be a playful trickster, a meddler, and a petty thief. The monkey is compared to man but in a lesser way, and I am using it to reference evolution.
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