“Pink Tiger Reflections” (19.2.25)
For our third exhibition, I decided to showcase two pieces: my largest ceramic sculpture yet, and a zine full of my poems and paintings. I wanted to display them in a way that invited people to sit down and read/flip through the zines like a kid in their classroom book corner, which I felt would suit my exploration nostalgia and childhood. I think this was successful, as many people did sit and interact with the zines in the way I hoped. However, I think if I had leant even further into this idea of a reading nook installation, perhaps by laying out blankets or cushions, I could have strengthened the cosy, childhood feeling I was aiming for. On the wall, behind the sculpture and zines, I pinned up two of the paintings featured in the zine. Whilst I was aiming to create a sense of curiousity by providing a taste of what was inside of the zines, in our curator feedback I was told that on the whole, the paintings were distracting and took away from the scultpure and zines. In the future I need to be more selective with what I present, as editing down is not my strong point. The sculpture itself was especially challenging due to its sheer size. I wanted to make it a jar, allowing the head to be taken on and off. Whilst this was mostly for practical reasons, it allowed me to explore the idea of nesting dolls by making a mini tiger to sit inside of the jar. The size of the jar itself posed many difficulties. To ensure that it did not collapse in on itself, I had to work in sections and allow each part to stiffen before continuing. However, as each section then began to dry and shrink at different paces, this resulted in a lot of cracking. Though I tired to smoothen it out, the jar ultimately exploded in the kiln. Luckily, I was able to glue the pieces back together and the damage wasn’t noticeable in the end. I feel that the zines and the sculpture showcase my work this year very successfully, so in the future I would like to continue exploring mixed-media pieces, being careful to be more intentional with what I show.