Ceramics II: Unified Tiles
Artist Statement:
For the Unified Tiles unit I brainstormed various ideas, but I decided to base my creation on one of the most important aspects of life: food. Food is a vital part of our lives, and I decided to depict how it can be harmful to our society. Much of the public, especially in the U.S., frequently eat fast food. There may be a few reasons (ex. it is often the cheapest option) but one of the major causes is the positive advertisement of fast foods to the public. This is why I decided to depict the overly positive television advertisements of unhealthy foods. I also was inspired by how
To create this work I planned out the details. I decided that I wanted the background slabs to be a television to mimic an actual commercial. In the middle would be various fast foods: a burger, french fries, a soda, a bag of chips, and a slice of pizza. I would glaze the food with unappealing glazes to clearly show to the audience that this food should not be eaten. However, around the food, I would put beaming lines to make the food look as if it was shining brilliantly, as it is often shown on television advertisements. This contrast would hopefully show to the audience that the fast food that is so positively shown on television is actually harmful to our bodies and let viewers realize that they should abstain from eating too much unhealthy food.
For the background of my tiles, I decided to paint the board with a mix of blue and white acrylic paint to give a sense of surrealism to the piece. I considered including purple paint as well except I thought it would look too hectic. The blue and white mixture looks a bit like thin clouds in the blue sky and I intend for this dream-like background to compliment my theme by saying that the positive advertisement of fast foods should not occur in real life and that people should wake up from this dream.
In the process of making my piece, the fact that I had to make three separate tiles reinforced what I learned last year, that I have to manage the plasticity of the clay. I had some problems because my middle tile dried out too quickly and dried out before I could slip and score my ‘food’ onto it, but I managed to stick it on well with lots of slip. Also, I was originally going to glaze my tiles with low-fire glaze, but as I needed distinct separation of colors between the food, television, and beams of light, I decided to erase the glaze and paint with acrylic paint instead.
Overall, I liked this unit as I could express my own thoughts. It was also fun to mix different acrylic paints to produce the ugly color that I wanted for the rotting food. I am also pleased with how my work turned out.
To create this work I planned out the details. I decided that I wanted the background slabs to be a television to mimic an actual commercial. In the middle would be various fast foods: a burger, french fries, a soda, a bag of chips, and a slice of pizza. I would glaze the food with unappealing glazes to clearly show to the audience that this food should not be eaten. However, around the food, I would put beaming lines to make the food look as if it was shining brilliantly, as it is often shown on television advertisements. This contrast would hopefully show to the audience that the fast food that is so positively shown on television is actually harmful to our bodies and let viewers realize that they should abstain from eating too much unhealthy food.
For the background of my tiles, I decided to paint the board with a mix of blue and white acrylic paint to give a sense of surrealism to the piece. I considered including purple paint as well except I thought it would look too hectic. The blue and white mixture looks a bit like thin clouds in the blue sky and I intend for this dream-like background to compliment my theme by saying that the positive advertisement of fast foods should not occur in real life and that people should wake up from this dream.
In the process of making my piece, the fact that I had to make three separate tiles reinforced what I learned last year, that I have to manage the plasticity of the clay. I had some problems because my middle tile dried out too quickly and dried out before I could slip and score my ‘food’ onto it, but I managed to stick it on well with lots of slip. Also, I was originally going to glaze my tiles with low-fire glaze, but as I needed distinct separation of colors between the food, television, and beams of light, I decided to erase the glaze and paint with acrylic paint instead.
Overall, I liked this unit as I could express my own thoughts. It was also fun to mix different acrylic paints to produce the ugly color that I wanted for the rotting food. I am also pleased with how my work turned out.