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Makayla Nielsen
Vickie Morgan
Exploring Art 1010
11/17/2011
Artist Statement
For me art has always been a passion. Since picking up a crayon or a colored pencil and
scribbling it has always felt right. Thus started my interest in art making. From elementary
schools teachings of “Meet the Master” where we learned about and attempted to recreate the
pieces made by master artists. In junior high school, I was enrolled in an art class for every year
and every semester. I first started out with the basic drawing classes and then moved slowly into
a watercolor class. From these classes in Junior High, I moved into 3-dimensional design in High
School. I immediately found my passion and found my true media and followed through the 3-D
Design classes to the point of where there wasn’t any more to take.
Through the 3-D class, I learned to work with glass etching, embossing, I made glazed
tiles, clay sculptures, jewelry making, and some collages. The medias that I preferred were the
glazed tiles, clay sculptures, and glass etching. I found that I loved to work with art with my
hands. To connect with my artwork I guess you could say. There is nothing better than the cold,
squishy, moist feeling of clay between my fingers as I make a small figure statue. From making
turtles, to a large clay heart that is now a paper weight. As for the glazed tiles, I was fascinated
by the painting, firing, and repainting to create a masterpiece that won a first prize in the school
art show. The glass etching I enjoyed because it was taking two or more separate pieces and
combining them to create one piece all together.
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As for my style, I found that I enjoyed creating passionate pieces. The one that started it
was my first set of glazed tiles which I made an image of my first kiss with. As I finished the
piece, my art teacher said he could feel the passion of the “love” by just looking at it. That was
my goal was to create that image that could create such a strong emotion within someone. As
well I like to create close-up images of pieces such as that of my painting “First Kiss”.
Something about the moment that the close-up catches just coincides with me and it is as if the
image just flows through whatever media I am using.
As for my observation and reflection, the pieces I have chosen are my Reflection of
Myself painting, and my Ancient Culture Sculpture. The one I am happiest with and that I
believe is successful would be my Reflection of Myself painting. Reason behind it is because it
turned out exactly how I planned it would. For the reflection of myself I painted a tree with its
changing colors. I chose the tree to reflect me because trees are known to symbolize age,
wisdom, life and constant change. All of which I find in myself so the best way to see it as a tree.
The strikingly bright colors of the tree, the sense of the grass actually being grass beneath the
tree, I feel as if this picture has a life to it that I can’t find in any of my other projects this
semester. Not only that but the awkward balance that is to it, like many of my other pieces, helps
to make it that much more enjoyable. When I was sponging the colors of the leaves of the tree
into it, it just looked natural. It looked as a tree would had I walked outside and found one that
looked just like it. There isn’t a whole lot of linear perspective to it other than the trunk of the
tree and the horizon line but other than that the overall shape of the tree is pleasing to the eye. I
love how the colors of the tree also make me feel. They represent change in the image, yet they
stir a warm, fuzzy feeling inside for me. By sponging the leaves into the piece, it helped to create
a visual texture as to the tree having small rough bumps throughout the image and because of
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how I sponged, there is a slight movement line that wasn’t intended as your eyes move further up
the tree. Overall, I am extremely pleased with this piece and may actually frame it.
The piece that I felt was the most challenging, however, would be my Ancient Culture
Sculpture. For my sculpture I chose to recreate an ancient Olmec type of statue known as a
swinging effigy vessel. The challenge was that this particular vessel could whistle in real life. At
my first attempt using the most random objects as tools and spending a good five hours on it, I
was successful at getting it to whistle. I created the face and body and had it ready to bake. That
is until my cat got a hold of it and tore it apart. I again created the statue in the same manner only
this time it wouldn’t whistle. I am puzzled at how I got the first one to whistle and the second
one to remain silent for I thought had I done it before wouldn’t this one just be better? That
wasn’t the case. So again, I created the head and body and the face, yet this time I felt like doing
something different. I decided I wanted to give this figure more than a head, body and face, and
so I began to decorate it. I first worked with the “hat” that went on top of the statue. Once I got
the shape I pressed in some designs that I had made out of clay as well. After finishing this piece,
I created the necklace that goes around the pieces neck. When I finished it, I decided it was great
yet there was still something more that I wanted it to do. That’s when it hit me that I wanted to
make the swinging vessel actually swing. I talked to my dad about making me a pillar on how to
make it swing hand he cut the wood for me. I hollowed out the hands of the statue and strung
some yarn through it to see if it would work. It faltered a bit so I ended up making a platform for
it to sit on out of clay. Baking the piece took all of about a half an hour, seeing as how thick the
head was. I am pleased with this project, but I do wish that it had been like the original and had
the ability to whistle. I enjoyed working with the sculpey clay and painting both the statue and
the pillar it resides on. Again as I stated before, there is nothing better than cool, smooth, clay
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between your fingers working to create something spectacular. The shape and smooth texture of
the swinging vessel are very appealing to the eye and give an amazed view to the piece. The dark
colors I chose to work with as well were perfect for it and I am overall pleased with this piece. I
picked this piece for a challenge and it truly was a challenge. A challenge that I am happy with
for having to recreate what I had already done.
Reflection of Myself – Tree
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Effigy Swinging Vessel