Final Project (Artist’s Statement)

Materials: air dry clay, wood, acrylic paint, newspaper
The sculpture is a vintage shelf covered with white cracked paint. It is partly withered using a mixture of black and black paint, while the other half is covered in branches with small leaves at the ends. This symbolizes the horrors of climate change in that we have destroyed the earth, but there is still a chance to fix it. Clay is used over the wood base to create an exaggerated form of a shelf, representing a sort of fantasy, the denial of climate change. I used the shelf itself, an actual and tangible item, to portray the reality of climate change. The inside of the sculpture is filled with remnants of my experiences in The Arts Seminar, from the Japanese tea ceremony to the upcoming opera. The inside of the shelf is covered in newspaper to represent the knowledge we have gained. The bottom of the shelf has inscribed 2030, which is the year scientists predicted the collapse of the earth. But the future is still unwritten.

This project overall was so much work and very tedious. The clay was falling apart and cracking everywhere, and the colors weren’t mixing properly. But somehow it worked out and I must say that I am pretty darn proud of it!