For my figurative sculpture assignment, I was first a little unsure about what my topic would be and most importantly who or what emotion would I be trying to create within this piece. The weekend before we officially started the project, my great grandmother had passed away. She was 91 and had completely lost her memory and was unable to speak for weeks prior to her passing. Going into class two days later was very difficult, but I was able to apply my sadness and frustration through this piece.
I decided to create a figurative sculpture containing two figure. An elderly lady holding a baby. This piece was inspired by a photo that was taken weeks after I was born in 1997. All of my family members had always called my great grandma and I, “best friends” or “buddies”. We had a very close connection from the day I was born and I spent a lot of time with her.
I chose this photo because it truly showed the connection that her and I had. It gave this sense of emotion through the facial expressions both of us seemingly showed throughout our time together.
I wanted the sculpture to have a sort of looseness to it in terms of texture and use of painting. I wanted to make sure that my fingerprints and part of me was literally in the piece. I chose to use acrylic paint for two reasons. One, I was unable to fire it due to some fixing I had to do when it cracked after being fired once. Two, I wanted to keep this handmade, personal feeling to it that I think glaze would have eliminated from the piece.
“Although our bodies may be apart, your hearts will stay connected.” This is what I decided to title this piece. I think this strongly gives the viewer an idea of what this is about, and with the piece, gives it a back story.
