Title:"Tree of Life" Medium: Clay, & butterflies Size: 8cm X 23cm For this piece the artist wanted to display a meaning about how beautiful is life when you appreciate it. Life for the artist is like a tree when is born, and it grows through time life comes and goes. The butterflies are symbolizing the leaves of the tree and the life, the branches and the trunk are thick and strong that overcome difficult times and how life becomes beautiful and stronger. Life is something sacred and beautiful. Planning At first I knew what I was doing with this project I wanted to incorporate religion and culture into this piece, because I really don't work a lot with those specific themes/topics in my art projects. I had in mind that I wanted to do something with the yin-yang. In Chinese philosophy the yin-yang describes how opposite forces are actually interconnected in the natural world. So I really was going with the this specific theme and idea that I had in mind, but at the last moment I changed my ideas and started over. The yin-yang was a specific topic that I wanted to work with and talk about it and eventually I was going to add 'trees' shaped as deer antlers made out of clay and put the 'fishes' that they were going to represent the yin-yang on the center of a board that I eventually was going to paint a landscape and put the fishes in the center and the two 'trees' on the side and make a little lake with the two fishes swimming interconnecting with each other. However, it didn't work out at the last moment and I eventually ended up redoing my project all over again and brainstorming some new ideas to come up with something. I later started to brainstorm ideas and I wanted to display a topic/theme that was really sacred for me 'life'. Life for me is something very precious and sacred, because a very scary situation happened in my family and I'm very thankful that everything came out fine at the end and no one got hurt in that past situation; and I will always be thankful that life is very sacred and beautiful.
Process 1. First we had to make our own clay in class, making it the right consistency in order to work with it. 2. Then when we were finished creating our right consistency of clay, we could start working right away with our piece 3. First I needed to wedge out the clay in order to get rid of air bubbles that were trapped in between of the clay and also a way to prevent your final piece in exploding while it's firing in the kiln. 4. Then I started sculpting the trunk of the tree first 5. Later, adding details into the trunk in order to make it realistic 6. Then, I started to roll out pencil size rolls of clay for the branches 7. I then did the scratch-&-score skill in order to add the roll piece's into the trunk piece 8. Finally, I let the sculpture dried completely and when it was fired I added the butterflies into the branches with hot glue Meaning behind the piece The meaning behind my piece is being able to display how sacred life is to me. Life is something very delicate and beautiful. It can be destroyed when it's put through a lot and when is not taken care of adequately. The tree trunk represents the strength of the tree that has become stronger throughout the years in life. The butterflies represent the life and also the leaves of the tree. Life is something sacred for me personally, because I had a very scary situation in my family and that's when I realize that death is something that you can't avoid because once it's your turn to go you can't do anything to change that. Many people may know this saying "Life is very beautiful and precious but it's a pretty lie and death it's the terrible truth". Artistic Inspiration I was mostly inspired by the art movement Surrealism. I really wanted to give that twist about life in working with this piece. I was inspired by the painting "Departure of the winged ship" by Vladimir Kush. This painting really captured my attention once I saw it for the very first time I immediately wanted to recreate something like this. The painting is very colorful and has a lot of movement, however, in my sculpture the only thing that pops out are the colors of the butterflies. Reflection When I was working with this piece I had some difficulties while working with clay. When I was first working in doing the yin yang idea I was having trouble in making the size of the fishes the same to each other. Also, in making the right size of the fins for both of the fishes was really hard because when I did one the other fin would come out too wide or too small. Although, when I changed my idea in working with the idea of making the tree with the butterflies I had some problems in adding the branches into the trunk, because they would fall out easily so I had to make the scratch-&-score skill more bigger in order for the pieces to stay in place. Also, the change of ideas of starting another new idea really impacted my time management and the time I had left it was a good thing, because I really managed in getting my things in on time and the clay got dried on time too.