Musk Deer (Expressive)

Zoey Tiefenthaler "Musk Deer"

Size, Stoneware Clay and Glass, 2022

My inspiration for this project came from my wondering about animals native to South Korea, something that I’ve been doing for another one of my classes this year. I searched for different animals native to South Korea and was immediately enamored by an image of the musk deer. It was unlike anything I have ever seen, and like many people who would first come upon this creature, they may think of it as anything but a herbivore. Turns out, the fangs are a feature of the male deer which are used to fight other males during mating season. It’s a peculiar creature that I was eager to recreate with ceramics.

The process started with me drawing a sketch using a reference image of the musk deer, just so I had a good idea of how the parts of the animal looked. Once that step was completed, I began to wedge and shape some clay to get the head shape figured out. It took some time, but once that was done, I got more clay and shaped them into the deer’s main facial features to attach to the face. I got the eyes, snout, nose, fangs, ears, and other parts of the head attached using the slip. Once the head got fired, I sanded it and began glazing once that was done. I used a mix of browns and reds for the face, dark-dark gray for the eyes and nose, and off-white for the fangs and insides of the ears. The glazing took a while to complete, and once that step was completed, the project was fired for the last time.

This piece is a sort of “homage” to my native culture, represented through an animal that’s native to that country. I didn’t know this until after I finished the project, but I later found out that the species in South Korea are endangered due to illegal hunting and poaching. So, in a way, this is an homage to my culture and the animal itself.

There wasn’t a real part of the process that was a standout in terms of difficulty, but parts like getting the proportions of the deer head right and having to glue back an ear on the deer after it broke off were present but solved with relative ease. If I had started over, I would have shaped the eyes differently and maybe done more texture work on the head of the deer to keep it from looking too smooth.

The style of this piece is Realism. What makes this unique to my own style is the attention to detail in the texture of the head of the deer and trying to stick to the look of the deer as closely as possible (colors, facial features, etc.) I particularly love the ears and fangs of the deer, as well as how the color of the hide.