TOWER Project 

Cherry and her Cowrie Shells.

This project was inspired by a short story I read as a child called; "The giants Necklace" by Micheal Morpurgo. It's the story of a little girl who makes a necklace out of shells long enough to stretch around a giants neck. When I was younger I remember reading this many times and everytime I read it, it always made me really emotional, because the little girl ends up being washed away by a storm that hits when she's trying to collect more shells. The little girl gets stuck in a cove unable to get back to the beach. Its a story that I've read many times throughout the years and it always resonates with me still to this day. It stirs within me something that I feel, like many others; a fear of the ocean. I've lived by the ocean or sea my whole life every time my family moved it was always to a coastline. I am so used to the giant body of water surrounding me. I was always known as the water baby in my family as the youngest of two sisters I was taught to swim almost as soon as I could walk and I have always had a strong love and passion for the ocean- a deep connection to it, but also a terrifying fear of it. To me it has always been a sublime. Beautiful and powerful but also terrifying and frightening. This ceramic piece reminds me of this love and fear of the ocean, and having a powerful connection to it. Something that is smooth and comforting but can also be a raging destructive storm.

Artists and work I was inspired by: 

http://www.sharmans-cross.com/classes2012/docs/Giant's%20necklace.pdf

https://www.michaelmorpurgo.com/book/the-giants-necklace/

http://www.underwatersculpture.com

http://raycollinsphoto.com/collections/store

Materials:
Clay
Blue glaze
String

Jason Decaires- Underwater Sculpture 

Ray Collins - Photography 

TOUCH 

Untitled 

The TOUCH project was a great experience for me, going and teaching the children at the Deaf and Blind school was a wonderful experience. It was a challenge getting the children to work with the clay some of them loved the feel of it and others couldn't stand the touch of it. The child I worked with was really into his work he wanted to make as many things as he could, he seemed to enjoy the feel of the clay and worked with his hands to make different shapes.

My pieces for this project were inspired by some readings I did on ceramic artists who are visually impaired. There work was inspiring and while making my work I began playing with the clay experimenting how far I could push it, with this being the first time I have used clay I was taking chances and exploring ways I could make my piece stimulating to the touch. I wanted it to be something smooth but something that you're fingers have to follow along to draw out the shapes and lines in it. I chose two different glazes for my pieces one that was extremely smooth and soft and the other one that was still a gloss glaze but it has more of a texture to it.

Materials:
Clay
Glaze

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXbu24e6120

https://touchartblog.wordpress.com

http://www.chrisgarofalo.com

TASTE 

A Taste of Nature 

For my taste project I was very inspired by the idea of sustainability. Our whole way of life can contribute to this if we switch our brain onto it, without thinking about it, it is easy to miss. Everything I see and hear about waste makes my ears scream. In the grocery store if I forget to bring my own bags my heart crumbles a little at the thought, and when I see them double bagging my items my eyes widen with horror. This may be a little bit of an exaggeration but I feel so strongly that we not only need to recycle but we need to reduce waste. I hear so many people say don't worry I will recycle it but there needs to be a step before to reduce the waste of recycling also.  My grandparents are a huge inspiration for this they cannot stand any waste at all, they grew up during the war when conserving everything was absolutely vital there was no wasting anything. My grandparents also spent many years working for doctors without boarders in places where resources were incredibly scarce if not non existent.For my project I wanted to create something that related to this idea of sustainability I wanted to grow something that could be cut down by the viewer and eaten right there. I wanted this interaction of physically getting your own food from the "ground". I believe that people should be aware of where there food comes from and how far their food travels, it is important to know these things and important to remember that food can be grown in your back yard if you want! 

Artists and work I was inspired by: 

http://robertcannon.eco1start.com 

Robert cannon says "I feel strongly that the Green Movement needs real Green Art to transmit it messages and dreams, its not only up to the engineers, architects,  and activists but also up to the artists."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/15/environmental-art_n_5585288.html

http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2013/01/sand-art-by-tony-plant/

Matierals:
Clay
Blue stone glaze
Moonlight glaze
Spouts
Crumbled Oreo cookies

Multiple Panel - The Trail

My multiple panel drawing was inspired in many ways by aboriginal art. This multiple panel is very primitive the color palate and the mark making also seem to go with this primitive feel. I used a pinhole prick mark making technique which I learnt in class during the experiment exercise. I became very inspired by it and kept responding to these pinhole trails, it was very therapeutic to me. My process started by dyeing my tracing paper with tea and coffee and then dipping the paper into beeswax to give it a soft smooth feel. I then started making these trails of pinholes, each panel I responded to differently and let it become this big long map-like
drawing. A big part of this process was about experimenting with my materials. I think this drawing was successful in texture and marking making, but I want expand on it and work in different ways to get the pinholes to show up more in different lighting. While photographing this piece I noticed its mystery element, like a hologram while moving around the drawing more lines and trails are revealed in different lighting. at different angles.


https://www.aboriginal-art-australia.com/aboriginal-art-library/aboriginal-dot-art-behind-the-dots/

Approx 20'x5"
Materials:
Tracing paper
Beeswax
Coffee and tea
Hot glue gun
pin

Drawing Collection - Meditative Mapping

This drawing collection grew from our class experiments, I became fascinated with using different materials to make marks. The experiments that I most enjoyed were the tea dyeing, I loved the soft color that stained the paper. This made me experiment with different teas to see what colors I could get. Other experiments I did at home included Marbling which is a method of creating a design or painting using the surface of the water. This is native to a few different cultures, but growing up in Turkey and being half Turkish I experienced this art frequently. Marbling is something that always inspired me and something I wanted to learn more about, especially the techniques and even the history of it. After doing much research I discovered that people do marbling in thousands of different ways and using different chemicals and materials. Some use only ink on water while others use a long list of chemicals and special inks to create their designs. I tried this marbling technique in different ways using different materials some of them included: ink, spray paint, nail polish, acrylics , shaving cream and ink, and many others. My favorite technique was the simplest and this was ink on water which is a Japanese technique known as Suminagashi. This technique was extremely calming and meditative to me. I am someone who likes to be in control of what I'm doing and especially in control of my work, this technique  of marbling did not allow for that, everytime I started my process it ended up being completely different. This was a good learning experience for me about taking chances and letting my work do what it wants to do.

http://www.metmuseum.org/blogs/in-circulation/2014/playing-with-paper
http://suminagashi.com
http://www.turkishculture.org/traditional-arts/marbling-113.htm

Japanese Suminagashi Marbling print 

Turkish Ebru Marbling 

My collection - Meditative Mapping

Transformation Drawing- Uncover

Change 1- Cover entire surface with art Graf Disc

2nd Change 

In process, Corn starch with water and blue acrylic paint 

First complete Transformation. Sealed with Elmer's glue

3rd Change 

4th Change- 

  

5th Change - 

       

       

6th Change

 

An artist who I was very inspired by while doing research for this transformation drawing was Judith Ann Braun. Her work is extremely based on mark making but also she uses her whole motion of her body for this work, she connects herself to it and becomes part of the drawing, you can see her movement and energy on these beautiful symmetrical drawings. I used this idea of moving across my drawing and using my body to become part of the drawing.  For each of my changes my work was very much based on texture and exploring what texture I could create. Every layer added more texture. 

Memory Drawing- 

Becoming a Child 
This drawing was all about the memories of my childhood home. When I started this exercise I began  drawing with my eyes closed in class, I walked through my house around every corner. I found this very meditative and comforting. It was nice walking through this home, it was as if walking through my memories of messy paint, baking, coloring and making things like play dough, all my childhood memories of that house were coming back to me. When I worked back into my drawing I didn't close my eyes this time but I pictured myself being a child again I wanted to get back into the mind of a child where it doesn't matter if you color over the lines or scribble all over your coloring book. I got back into this frame of mind and began working. I made a watercolor wash all over the drawing noticing the paint sinking into my original lines, I came back in with pencil and began scribbling madly like a child all over my drawing this was a lot of fun and a nice outlet. I worked into my drawing with more materials using them without fear or containment. I spattered paint and melted crayon all over. I liked the result, it felt familiar and reminiscent of my memories. The last thing I did was I felt I needed to create some order as I always like to have some kind of order even if it's organized chaos, I cut my drawing up into thin strips and reassembled it on white paper. This was a nice experience for me I am not usually so brave with color but this drawing allowed me to be it allowed me to be a child again. 

Approx 18'x20'
Materials: 
White paper 
Crayons 
Watercolor 
Ink
pencil 
food coloring 

Untitled 7

 

House on Loon Lake 
This drawing started by listening to a podcast story of a boy who used to visit an old house abandoned house full of peoples stuff. I felt like a detective creating a map of marks trying to figure out what happened. I kept reaching for an end searching for an explanation to everything. Meeting more and more frustration that the story was not coming to an end we kept hearing more information but no resolution. These kinds of stories are the most frustrating to me I like and need to have an ending to a story, this was maddening to me not being able to have a reason for the abandoned house or who these people were. This was the reason for my original drawing of lots of "doodling" kind of marks where I was waiting for an end listening to each sentence and how it made me feel. For my second drawing I worked on a piece of old mattress topper memory foam. I worked without any plan or idea of what I wanted my drawing to look like and I used a lot of untraditional materials trying to work and respond in a way the story made me feel.

Approx. 18'x20'
Materials:
Memory Foam
Black Paint
String 
Tracing Paper
Glue/water 

Untitled 8

22 Turned 44 Drawing Tests 

22 tests were made to experiment with different mark making techniques and material experiments. Materials and experiments for the first 22 included tea stain, bleach pen, bees wax, natural paint brushes from found materials and stippling with a pinhole prick. After using these initial materials and techniques, I went home to experiment and make more tests. I used the methods I liked the best which was the pinhole prick, the tea staining and the bleach.

Approx. 4'x6'
Materials used:
Ink on water (Marbling)
Tea
Hibiscus tea
Coffee
Paprika spices
Wine
Bleach
Wax

In process, Untitled