Kristina Brandeus Kirkkopelto
Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design Ceramics and Glass Master, 2021
Tutours:
Matt Smith, Andrea Peach, Birgitta Burling
Word count: 5695
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Small late autumn harvest in my garden, 2019
Abstract
A recent discovery made at Bar-Ilan Univeristy in Israel, demonstrated in a scientific setting that the human mind has a neural mechanism actively making the self avoiding thoughts about its own mortality. Curiously enough the research further suggests that an awareness of the self’s death could potently lead to a more meaningful life.
There is an inclination around being sick and weak, holding back how we approach end of life care and our inherent mortality; which in return affects presence and expectations regarding our lives. If death and transience were to be viewed as a natural occurrence, mirroring how we view horticulture and gardens, this could ease anxiety and phobia regarding the end.
In my paper I am sharing research by Atul Gawande and Elisabeth Kubler-Ross regarding death-phobia and end of life care. As suggested in some of the literature, death-phobia may occur due to anxiety over not living a meaningful life and I am using Lev Tolstoy’s fictional book The death of Ivan Ilyich to evoke thoughts about mortality and what a meaningful life could be comprised of.
In my conclusion and through my sculpture of enlarged flowers made out of cast glass and high fired stoneware;
I modestly argue that love and presence can provide meaning and solace, for conquering death-phobic acculturation. That by acknowledging that transience is a forum for beauty one could enhance the magic of the mundane.
Keywords: Love, Gardening, Mortality, Presence, Expectations, Death-phobia.
4 Index
Introduction 5 Rotten Beauty 5-7 Memento Mori 7-9 Raking the pathway 9-10 Until death do us apart 10-11 Conclusion 11
Bibliography & Image references 12
Appendix -Process pictures
-Example of firing programme 14 -After the Spring Exhibition 15-16
Introduction
My graduate project draws inspiration from Dr. Yar Dor Zidermans research on death-phobia1. He demonstrates, in a scientific setting, that the human mind shows a predisposition for avoiding thoughts about the self’s
mortality. The discussion part of the paper brings up an interesting opinion and I will quote him: ”Existential philosophers have long argued that boldly facing the prospects of dying; truly knowing we, rather than everybody else, are going to die, is the factor which can summon the mental resources necessary for overcoming a deeply ingrained acculturation and facilitate an existential shift towards a more authentic and meaningful life”.2
When I came across Dr. Yar Dor Zidermans research it was early spring and I was making plans for what to sow in my garden and the cyclical similarities between those of a garden and those of our life struck me. How the garden is a transitional space of growth through time; the peak of a bloom or ripening, then decay and
withering. A garden is a visual manifestation of natural cycles, which are to be enjoyed for simply what they are, with lessened expectations and an openness towards possibilities and then the seasonal end of it all that is to be bluntly accepted. We love our gardens, and we accept its mortal cycle as integral to its existence, yet how do we perceive our own innermost garden of love?
I look at my garden through a lens of lessened pressure and expectations, it becomes easy to enjoy and to feel a sense of fulfilment when reflecting about it. The garden provides me a forum of presence, a place to enjoy beauty and to slow down. Perhaps if time and life were viewed through an acknowledgment of the self’s mortality, mirroring how the season of winter and inhabited nothingness is expected in a garden – everyday could be appreciated and enjoyed more, thus as suggested in Dr. Yar Dr Zidermans research – that awareness of mortality could potentially lead to a more authentic and meaningful life.
In caring for our gardens, we set out to domesticate nature. Notwithstanding our display of empathy towards this wild medium it will always remain untamed. My research question is whether the analogy of a garden can help us come to terms with this likeness in our own innate death-phobia and if we can come to terms with its feral nature through the lens of nature itself?
With horticulture and a withering wedding bouquet on my mind I visualized a sentiment that became the starting point for the physical part of my MFA project. Through high fired stoneware and cast glass I have built flowers that are approximately 160 cm high, allowing the viewer to face the work with their whole body as they encounter it, providing a forum of beauty and presence. I believe craft is a resourceful way of visualizing presence, as it is a result of time committed toward material. The wedding bouquet is an inspiration – as it is a symbol carrying connotations of love and decay, unveiling questions about presence and expectations.
In this paper I am describing how and why cast glass became a material of interest for me. Learning the fundamentals and the specifics of the technic has been a large part of my MFA project, since I had no previous experience of working with it. In my appendix I am sharing pictures of the process and some of the firing programs designed for kiln casting the glass.
In the first chapter I am describing some of the inspiration behind the project, such as the Ware Collection of Blaschka Glass Models of Plats and how the way the collection is displayed may be an effect of societal preference for vitality and beauty. Further in the paper I am sharing research by Atul Gawande and Elisabeth Kubler-Ross regarding death-phobia and end of life care. As suggested in some of the literature, death-phobia may occur due to anxiety about not living a meaningful life and I am using Lev Tolstoy’s fictional book The death of Ivan Ilyich for evoking thoughts about mortality and what a meaningful life could be comprised of.
Rotten Beauty
In 2018 I was spending my summer in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. During one August morning I was walking
1 NeroImage nr 202. Prediction-based neural mechanisms for shielding the self from existential threat. 2019. P.9
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around in The Harvard Museum of Natural History. Before entering the last wing of the museum, I had seen roomfuls of delicately displayed skeletons, taxidermy animals, birds, and insects. As I entered the last wing, advertised as a floral exhibition, I expected a collection of frozen specimens. It soon dawned on me that these exhibits were artistically crafted interpretations made from glass. The detailed execution, the preciseness, and the realism of the flowers made me awestruck.
The Ware Collection of Blaschka Glass Models of Plants is a unique collection made by Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka, a father and son team of Czeck glass artists, who spent fifty years, from 1886 through 1936 producing over 4,300 glass models representing 780 plant species. Professor George Lincoln Goodale, commissioned the collection as a teaching tool and for public exhibition. At the time scientific models were made from papier- mache or wax, but Goodale wanted a better material to illustrate plant specimens.
Furthermore the Blaschkas had made models of diseases in summer fruit, depicting fungus, spores and stages of putrefaction in strawberries, peaches, pears, plums etc.
At the time that I was visiting the exhibition there were only few of the diseased fruits from the complete collection on display; a few varieties of apples. The craftmanship was astonishing but perhaps what was even more intriguing was the effect of having rotting apples displayed next to the most beautiful and vital flora, enhancing their beauty and the transience of the bloom. A contrasting effect and diversity became apparent and I as a viewer am still not sure what was more intriguing; the perfect flowers, the rotting apples, or the
combination of having them side by side.
Since Harvard acquired The Ware Collection the rotting fruit has mostly been hidden away in storage, only exhibited next to the flora on short occasions. August, 31, 2019 to through 1, March, 2020, they were exhibited for the first time in twenty years. Why is it that decay and that which is not emblematic of vitality is often intentionally obscured and hidden away in such fashion?
In Being Mortal, Atul Gawande reminisces about his grandfather’s life3 as an old man in rural India where he lived as an integral part of his family until the very end of his days. They had a reciprocity; they cared greatly for him in his last years and his old age and wisdom provided them with a connection to the entire spectrum of life - - to them an utter necessity, not just culturally but emotionally to resonate with our individual evolution. Today
3 Gawande, Atul. 2014. Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End. Metropolitan Books. P. 27
people’s end-of-life care is in many cases tucked neatly away in retirement homes and palliative centres, just as compromised fruit is never at display in the grocery store, we put forth only the shiniest examples and ideals of the human being, thus at The Harvard Museum of Natural History the vital and exact models of fresh flora are prioritised when showing the Blaschka collection. Our own very real mortality notwithstanding the media and advertisement disconnects us from our own individual evolution and the question stands: what effect does this have on us? Are we first, when faced with a severe diagnosis beginning to seek for means on how to resonate with our own mortality?
L: Strawberry with Penicillium sp. mold, Model 791, Rudolf Blaschka, 1929 R: One of the few rotting fruits I got to see 2018.
Memento mori
Before the advent of modern medicine, death was an unavoidable and integral part of life; to be faced stoically without fear or self-pity. Simply putting one´s faith in God for forgiveness. And that was that. Death often came in the form of an unexpected event or preceded by some rather inconspicuous accident, a light bruise became infected leading to septicaemia and an abrupt end was met. Yet slower developments were also common, tuberculosis masquerading as a stubborn cough before taking on its “miliar” form with multi-organ failure and a steep deterioration in both health and hope.
Today, when scientific and medical breakthroughs are being bruited around the clock the final stages of life and terminal illnesses have become obscured; aging and dying have transformed into a medical experience rather than a natural process. Death has become an “illness”, something we try to treat and cure, our inherent mortality notwithstanding. It has become something clinical that we actively distance ourselves from, rather than accepting it in all its naturalness.
Atul Gawande debates in his book “Being Mortal” that modern medical sciences have made it nearly impossible to know who really is nearing the end; is a person with far gone cancer, dementia or uncurable heart failure really dying? How can one empathize with the worries and anxieties of a terminally ill patient if they are unconscious and their organs merely kept alive by technology? 4 If one is to be diagnosed with an uncurable illness; why do we proceed with undergoing treatments we know won’t give us back what we had, such as strength and physical abilities. Treatments that in some cases will probably just result in a prolonged and more painful death?
Recent research at Bar Ilan University in Israel by Dr. Yar Dor-Ziderman shows that the human mind has a neural mechanism to shield and protect the self from the awareness of its own mortality. In a scientific study5 it was concluded that the mind goes to great lengths to avoid thinking about the self’s death. In a two-part experiment, participants were shown video of faces slowly morphing and asked to indicate when the faces became
4 Gawande, Atul. 2014. Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End. Metropolitan Books. P. 167
5 NeroImage nr 202. Prediction-based neural mechanisms for shielding the self from existential threat. 2019.
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unrecognisable; all the while being shown either positive messages or words related to death/dying.
In test number one the participants were shown imagery of for them unknown faces together with neutral, negative or death-related linguistics. The participants showed consistency in their personal threshold for determining that the identity of the subjects shown in the imagery had changed.
In test number two however, the subjects in the imagery were the participants themselves. Here, the
participants showed a clear bias in the death-related imagery, and a much lower threshold for determining that the identity, i.e. themselves, had changed to that of someone else. Although, when seeing themselves in negative or neutral imagery their threshold was as predicted in the first experiment.
The discussion part of the paper raises question as to why this phenomenon occurs; they theorize that it could be an evolutionary advantage for people to reject the concept of their own mortality. Another possible reason is that we live in a death-phobic culture. This, however does not explain why the participants of the study only showed a lower threshold when shown their own faces in death-related imagery, but it is concluded that we often think of death as something that happens to others.
Why is it that the naturalness of death does not come intuitively? I have found some aspects in Elisabeth Kubler Ross´s, Sue Stewart Smith’s work and in the fictional book Ivan Ilitch Death by Lev Tolstoy that are resonating with ideas around the self’s death that correspond with what I, through my sculpture would like to visualize and create an encounter with.
In “The death of Ivan Ilyich” by Lev Tolstoy, the protagonist is faced with an incurable illness. As the disease proceeds and his health deteriorates Ivan´s anxiety rises and he comes to the realisation that he regrets most parts of his life; that he had made most of his profound and important choices based on societal norms, rather than letting himself do that which he truly dreamed and longed for.
The novel suggests that there are two types of lives; one marked by artificial aspects of life with shallow relationships, egocentric strife for achievements and material gain. The second lived with authenticity and marked by compassion and cultivation of close and intimate relationships allowing true connection.
In the book Ivan’s wife hires the best doctors available in hope of curing him, but Ivan just gets more resentful by every appointment he must go through, his illness ever worsening. All he is longing for is for someone to dare face his fear of dying, to comfort him and let him cry in agony. But neither his wife nor adult children would know how to dare to meet him in his existential pain.
According to the Bengt Jangfeldt, who translated a second version of “Ivan Ilyich Death” to Swedish in 2015, this is the most requested book amongst cancer patients at the hospital library of Radiumhemmet, Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm6. Is it only at our last trembling step of the ladder that we need this treatise on existential pain and facing our own mortality?
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross stated in a lecture 1981, that “Humans who live fully and truly are neither afraid of dying or living”7. By living fully and truly she means, besides making righteous and moral decisions, that one should make a point of not having any unresolved issues. For example; if you were to die tomorrow you would probably be sad that you did not get to tell someone how much you love them, how you appreciate them, or extend your apologies regarding something that went wrong. But if you were to always love fully and unconditionally you wouldn’t be afraid of what wasn’t done, because it was expressed already. Kubler-Ross further states: “It’s not mortality that is frightening. It is what we do with our lives”8. And what we don’t.
Sue Stuart-Smith concludes that the close encounters and experiences with death during our lives are generally regarding someone we love or feel close too. Thus, death becomes a traumatic event; the irreversibility of it, the inhumanity of it. She further states “We are not prime to dis-attach, we are primed to seek reunion”9.
These experiences could act as a form of “memento mori”, through which we remind ourselves of our own mortality, that time is limited, and our days truly are counted. This is not wholly a negative experience though, and could serves to ignite a new spark in our own lives and outlooks. Through these tangential encounters with death the real value of life can crystalize, its contours become more defined and its body can shine brighter;
when coming face to face with its real backdrop, death.
6 Tolstoj, Lev. The death of Ivan Iljitj. 1886. P.7
7 Kubler-Ross, Elisabeth. Making the most of the in between. P. 53
8 Kubler-Ross, Elisabeth. Making the most of the in between. P. 89
9 Stewart-Smith, Sue. The Well Gardened Mind. P. 19
I want to explore this backdrop in an approachable setting of horticulture, placeholding as a familiar theme, and create an opportunity for the onlooker to relate to death and mortality through the unthreatening lens of withering flora.
The raking of the pathway
In this project I use ceramics, high fired stoneware, juxtaposed with casted glass. I am intrigued by combining two relatively different mediums and let them each represent their own inherent qualities. My aim is not to disguise their individual authenticity through unifying them, rather to boldly explore two different materials from the perspective of what they bring forth togheter in their merging.
The casted glass is however a result of a clay original and this, even after transitioning through wax before becoming glass, still leaves innate characteristics of the ceramic qualities (my original sculpture) on the final glass object. I believe this is one of the reasons I am so drawn to casted glass, that even though it being a new
material for me to explore, it still a reflection of a clay body.
The high-fired stoneware may be considered as a rather stagnant material; once fired unreformable, thus as the kiln casted glass. But I have never viewed the objects as finished post firing, rather as parts to keep assembling and building with. Perhaps becoming even more available for activation in their post firing state; to be affected by their surroundings, the gaze of others and the juxtaposition of the materiality with other material.
Kiln casting glass involves the preparation of a mould, which I make with a mixture of plaster and quarts in a 50/50 ratio. The plaster is to keep the mould hardened, and the quartz to release the glass from the mould. The wax original is in the centre of the mould, a process called investment. The wax is then to be aired out, through a steaming machine, leaving a cavity in the mould and a funnel-like opening that is then to be filled with glass.
There are different traditions of constructing this; in some you would use metal netting, but I make the mould with the tradition of enlarging the mould with a 2,5cm wall, two or three times depending on the complexity of the wax original. The wall, or jacket, is to prevent the glass from, in case of cracking during the firing, to leak out from the mould and into the kiln. The kiln is further prepared with a layer of sand, making removal of eventual leaked glass, more manageable.
The firing programs are long and complex, consisting of around ten stages. The peak temperature varies depending on which glass is used, normally around 820-860 Celsius. The firing program ends by controlling the cooling of the kiln, and it is not to be opened before coming to room temperature, as the glass when just casted is sensitive to fluctuations in temperature.
I’ve been recommended making three moulds of each object, the first merely trial for which sequences of temperatures and duration to use; then to evaluating whether the glass melted as desired, and if the air canals were enough. Each firing is documented in a book, so that adjustments can be made specifically for each object/mould. You can see an example of a firing program for one of my larger moulds in the appendix. Since this is a new technic for me, a majority of my MFA has gone into learning the basics and specifics of this technic.
If any wax is left in the mould it will colour the glass –which can be utilized. In the sculpture Utsnitt by Karin Törnell, 2016, this became a desirable quality for her sculpture, resembling ash-like residue, leaving a haunting sense of inconsolability in her sculpture of a backbone. Other works by Törnell consist of technically challenging cast glass sculptures and quite often combined with other materials, such as jasmonite, hardplaster or steel, delicately merged together. In the right picture the sculpture Stormens öga is made out of cast glass, corian and sail cloth.
Left. Fig 1: Utsnitt, Törnell, Karin, 2016. Fig 2: Stormens Öga, Törnell, Karin, 2018.
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If I would have been more knowledgeable in the technique of kiln casted glass; I would have desired an “ash effect“ in my floral glass sculptures. However, I needed to focus on the basics of the technique in this project, ending up deciding on not playing too much with more unpredictable aspects. However, as I gain more knowledge about kiln casted glass, the method of intentionally leaving wax residue in the mould is something I would be curious to discover delve deeper into.
Another procedure that became more complicated than estimated was the creation of the daisy-like flower.
First, I approached it as I would have done previously, making a clay original, then a plaster mould of it to cast the wax in parts and then built the wax original together by using black wax, a glue-like wax. However, the petals where too heavy for the black wax to keep them in position. It became evident that this wax original was had to be cast as one unit, and only in white wax.
I welded a steel structure and used my plaster mould to make new clay parts, building them on the steel construction. Then made a silicon/acrystal mould of it. I could have used plaster but as the mould was to be made on a larger scale, acrystal would make the casting process manageable to do by myself as it is a lighter material. Further I took the opportunity to learn a new type of mould making. Finally, I was able to cast the wax original without it braking, only to realize that there was no way to make it look withering. A period of testing followed where I used a heat-gun and cold water to try re-forming the wax into a more fragile looking shape.
If the wax original was difficult, making it in glass was even more so. In my appendix you can see pictures of the process.
In order left to right; making the mould for the wax original: Clay-original. Clay-jacket and enclosements for mould. Siliconlayer. Acrystallayer.
Final mould.
The process of kiln casted glass consists of a lot of trial and error, even for experienced artists. It can be debated that the lost-wax mould method is not sustainable; especially when working with larger sizes it requires a lot of material and leaves a lot of waste. A medium sized lost wax-mould can easily demand 50kg+ of material in plaster and quarts, and only be used once, as the glass object is carved out of it.
It has at times been heart-breaking to spend so much time on making a mould, only to have the cast glass come out imperfect/broken/not melted out. The first time I successfully casted a flower in Czech-glass I was too chocked to even realize it. Especially when the Czech-glass is considered difficult to cast, since it “floats” slower and in a thicker mass, never becoming quite as liquid like the Swedish’ Målerås glass, for example.
Till death do us apart
I often seek to contrast an overall sentiment of light-heartedness through colour and shape, framing more difficult feelings or themes in recognisable figures and pastel colours. Working figuratively opens up for an approachableness, in contemplating the objects themselves. Since my BFA project, 2016, this has been a central theme in my artistic practise, to visually depict contradictive human emotions.
For this project I was curious to approach duality/contradictions from a different perspective, rather than sentiments based on a personal level, I wanted to try and visualise a common fear or to communicate a societal inclination. Further I wanted to work without anthropomorphising my objects or the use of characters.
In my final sculpture for my MFA project, I have depicted flowers without regarding their normal size or shape, frozen in time in their withering state, as symbols of commitment, and love, a reminder for us to be present. An interpretation of a withering wedding bouquet, a symbol of commitment, love and expectations. The idea was that the flowers were to be interpreted as cut flowers, as their life-span is then shortened. Just like a human life would be compromised by illness, abruptly bringing new perspective and meaning to the earlier days of health
and great import to remining ones.
It was important for me to enlarge the flowers, to create a monumental encounter; perhaps emphasising the vulnerability of the bloom and to create an encounter where the onlooker would face the work with their whole body.
I have created a sculpture that at first sight looks just beautiful, but that on a closer glance is conveying more serious emotions. The title hinting on a more serious sentiment of what I wanted to convey and create an approachable encounter with.
Note: pictures of final project will come after examinations 16, April, 2021
Conclusion
I set out to make a visualisation of a common fear or to communicate a societal inclination. Thus, I found Dr. Yar Dor-Zidermans research interesting, as it was concluded that an awareness of what the mind actively wanted to shield the self from in fact could be beneficial to recognise. This research offered a kind of dilemma that I found curious to depict. A second part of impact in this project was of a material exploration; learning the
fundamentals of cast glass.
It enthuses me that the cast glass is a reflection of a clay body as it is based on a clay original, leaving inherent qualities of my ceramic sculpture to be transformed into glass. Rather than viewing my objects as finished post firing, I like to see them as parts to continue building with, hence creating the possibility of a merge between two rather different materials that yet in all their disparity resemble each other. This is something I am keen on continuing working with.
At times, during the production of the physical work, it felt like my artistic liberty was limited by my lack of knowledge on how to manage the medium of cast glass. However, in the end that brought on a positive discourse for the project, leaving a positive mark in the final sculpture. My final work became more subtle than anticipated, and I am pleasantly surprised with the outcome. Sometimes the subtle or simple manages to coney a message clearer, an effect that I previously have not managed to accomplish or approach, as I usually have too many ideas and wishes for what to conclude in a work/project.
The final sculpture depicts one withering and one vital flower. Cut or growing, flowers still have a limited time before withering, reflecting that of a human life. But in the midst of its bloom and energy, often forgotten and seldom pondered as a mirror for our own transience.
During this project I have thought, or tried to, reflect on the self’s mortality, and the conclusion that seems to make the most reason for approaching and accepting death-phobia --is to love more and perhaps daring to be more vocal about it as Elisabeth Kubler Ross suggests in Making The Most of the in Between. In ‘Till death do us apart’ I would like to show that transience can be a forum of beauty through which one can reflect on the short prospect of life and the urgency for emphasising love whilst one can.
Note: pictures of final project and more process pictures for appendix, will be added during May, 2021.
12 Bibliography
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. 1990. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Harper Perennial.
Dor-Ziderman, Yair. 2019. Prediction-based neural mechanisms for shielding the self from existential threat.
Science Direct, Volume 202, 15 November 2019.
Fallan, Kjetil. 2019. The Culture of Nature in the History of Design. Routledge.
Gawande, Atul. 2014. Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End. Metropolitan Books.
Stuart-Smith, Susan. 2020. The well gardened mind. Scribner.
Tolstoj, Lev. 1886. The death of Ivan Iljitj.
Robertson, Jean and McDaniel, Craig. Themes of Contemporary Art, visual art after 1980. 2013. Oxford University Press.
Image references
Fig 1 on P.7 Berglund, Jennifer, 2019. https://www.nationalgeograpic.com/sience/article/rotting-fruit-art-points- up-plants-in-peril
Fig 1 on P.9 Törnell, Karin, 2016. http://www.tornell.se/verk Fig2 on P.9 Törnell, Karin, 2018. http://www.tornell.se/verk
All other images courtesy of Kristina Brandeus Kirkkopelto.
Appendix – Process pictures
Making the flower steams. Fig 1: Modelling it in clay K129. Fig 2: High-firing time. Last touch ups before next self and steam are to be placed above. Fig 3: Emptying the mould of clay, before airing out the wax.
First trial of casting the daisy-flower in glass. Fig 1: The wax original finally holding together. Fig 2: Plaster/quartz mould, four cm from not fitting the kiln. Fig 3: A freshly opened mould. So close, yet so far. A crack and some errors.
Making the bell-flower Fig1: Air canals and reservoir attached to the wax original. Fig 2: Casting the plaster/quarts mould. Fig 3: Moulds with Czech glass ready to be baked (fiered)!
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Example of firing program designed for medium mould and ~3kg Banas (Czech) glass:
The two first steps provide some drying time for the mould, as mine was still moist and it should be completely dry, to avoid cracking.
Always stay 2h on 600° as this is the point of quartz conversion for the mould.
This is the time of peak temperature, the estimated time and heat needed for all glass to be melted out. If I would fire this particular object again, I would probably go for 8,5h as I had quite some cold work to do on these objects afterwards.
Banas Glass recommends having a curve of stability as you hit 470°, letting the glass rest there as a molecular conversion is happening. If this is rushed, it may crack during cold working it instead.
This programme, including cooling down after the kiln has been turned off, would take roughly 12 days before the mould would be ready to open. ALWAYS remember: even if kiln temperature shows 34 degrees, inner temperature of the mould is probably around 40 degrees warmer, meaning WAY to warm to open. Patience.
Patience. Patience.
Time Temperature
10h 50°
10h 70°
6h 100°
4h 200°
8h 600°
2h 600°
5h 860°
9h 860°
0,10h 470°
25h 470°
30h 360°
40h 40°
Appendix – After the Spring Exhibition
In my final sculpture I have depicted flowers without regarding their normal size or shape. The spiral shape of the flowers’ stems represents closeness yet our tendency to still always grow in our most individual paths, tracing each other perhaps in an overarching path, yet thriving from the resonance of our individualities, thus embracing our loneliness while valuing our togetherness.
Furthermore, the stele has replaced the ceramics, since my parts in high fired stoneware became irreconcilable with my objects in casted glass. The stele also became a replacement for what was supposed to be depicted as withering. The stele is bare and industrial, a material of few organic connotations. In this piece it fills a function of an anonymity, neither vital or withering.
Standing in front of my work I look at a piece that is completely different from what I set out to do in the fall. The original idea had a lot of parts and components; a bouquet on a large platform, petals and leaves around it and in pastel colours. The piece I am standing in front of is in a sense minimalistic, at least compared to what I’ve done previously. One colour, bare stele and perhaps some traces of light colour on the veils on the stele platform. I look at my sculpture and I think it’s beautiful. Peers and guests coming through the Spring Exhibition has said the same; that I’ve made a beautiful sculpture. Yet I feel something is missing. Another layer? A deeper sentiment?
Perhaps I miss a joy shining through in the finished work, traces of pleasure and fun from the making it, an inherent quality of craft, where a love for a material has led to an art piece. That the pure making of the work through a play with the material was an adventure of curiosity and excitement.
Perhaps I am biased, since it would be a stretch to call this project one consistent of joy. There for I cannot read playfulness or curiosity in to it. In the examination it was commented that there was a sense of timelessness to it, or a play on art nouveau. I appreciate that feedback and going forth I think it could be interesting looking into art and craft from that era. Further it was mentioned my MFA sculpture has a sense of romanticism to it, and that I could use that as a strength going forward.
With this said, I do like the sculpture, and perhaps I am also surprised I’ve made it, as it looks nothing like my previous works or the original idea. It’s something new for me and seeing it I wonder what kind of art I will make after this.
The Spring Exhibition was the first time showing the work. I liked the placement of my sculpture; I believe there was a nice harmony around it, a lot of space, roof windows sheading natural light on it. I was pleasantly surprised how well the sculpture worked together with Lea Constan’s weaves. Even though totally different materials;
through colour and structure there was a dialogue, through both our projects addressing sentiments of love and compassion in different ways.
The placement of my sculpture could not have been better and seeing it in the spring exhibition together with all the other graduate works was a delight and relief. However, I am not sure I would like to show it again. This piece was a learning process.
I’ve learned a lot through this project: Kiln casting glass, acrystal silicone mould, how to cold work glass, wax, kiln cast mould making and finally stele. To manipulate and form the stele pipes and platform and to blacksmith the top parts. I knew some weldig prior to this, but now I also learned to weld and use cold air to keep the stele flat.
I’m looking forward to new adventures.
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Special thanks to, in alphabetic order:
Backman Max, for proofreading my paper.
Brandeus Tarja, for almost never being tiered of driving me and my sculptures/equipment around.
Törnell Karin, for your supreme wisdom and knowledge in cast glass.
