Amy O'Carroll

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#ceramics #lsadceramics

Day 4

#ceramics #lsad

#potterswheel #throwing #ceramics

Build number 2. Will she survive the journey to the kiln? 🤪

#ceramics #towerbuilding

Bottle made from paper pulp, wire and hot glue. This was an experiment that didn't make it to the final piece however there are a few elements that I liked and I might develop on the paper pulp technique further down the line. It's quite a difficult material to work with.

Since I didn’t have enough time to make several clay bottles I decided to multiply the bottles by photographing them and editing them with software. I also introduced a  background with some experimental markings made with the cap of the bottle, my hands, and the rim on the top of the bottle with white acrylic paint. 

Each response I got was the beginning of someones story. Since the people who responded were anonymous to everyone but myself they tended to really open up and share something personal from their life. My hope with this piece was to create something that would encourage open discussion and sharing of peoples individual relationships with their gut instinct. I also wanted to understand it more…it seems that we do have this in built navigation system that knows what’s best for us before we are consciously aware of it. It seems that once an event has passed we then realize that our gut was talking to us but for some reason we may have ignored it. 

I chose to make moulds of Kombucha bottles because it is a drink that supposedly promotes good gut health. Since my project focuses on gut instinct I thought it would be a nice object to use as a canvas to display stories/text. We often talk about whats is and isn’t good for our physical health but rarely talk about things that run deeper than the surface which is having a strong sense of self and tuning into our gut feelings. 

Experimenting with handwriting. I actually like this scribbly style because it makes it a bit more personal. Since the piece is about reflecting on personal experiences related to gut instincts it could be associated with journaling/diary writing. We tend to write about personal experiences in a lot more detail when we know no one will read it. These words were responses from a variety of different people through social media. 

I photographed one of the clay bottles and brought it into GIMP software. I changed the contrast and played around with different sizes and placements. The words/ sentences in this image are some of the responses I got on social media when I posted the sentence stem “If I had trusted my gut instincts:”. As I was rotating the bottles and placing them on the page I realized the negative space could be representative of the digestive system. I really enjoyed playing around with this and I think mixed media really makes a striking visual. I’d like to do some more of this but think about the theme of my project a bit more. 

These are the clay bottles I have made, they are still not finished I have yet to add details to the surface. I made plaster of Paris casts of two different shaped bottles of kombucha (fermented tea). I used air dry clay. I am fairly happy with how these turned out. They are slightly warped and not an exact replica of the bottles however I sort of like their imperfectness. Even though I have sanded them down they still have bumps and notches in them. I like these details as they give the bottles a weathered look. More updates to follow.

I went through Pinterest to find some inspiration for composition and lighting. Seeing the light fixtures made me realize that my piece doesn’t have to be just decorative...it can have a function beyond something poetic. Maybe I can turn my piece into something functional later on or do something different with it.