Element of Nature

Artist Statement

For this project, we were assigned to synthesize an element of nature, either fire, water, earth, or wind, with the design of a functional object. For my project, I was inspired by mushrooms, and how I could work with their form to create a functional object. I was somewhat pressured for time, as I would be missing some school before break, and we were limited to three pounds of clay, so I knew I wanted to make a smaller object. With approximately 1.5 pounds of clay, I set off to make two candlesticks, using the caps of the mushrooms as a base to for the candlestick to maintain its balance and as a plate to catch dripping wax, and the stem hollowed out to actually hold the candle. With these upside down mushroom candlesticks, I was able to create a functional object directly inspired by the form and decoration of an element of nature. 

Once I knew I wanted to create these upside down mushroom candlesticks, I first spent some time on the internet looking at different kinds of mushrooms and sketching out various shapes and styles. After selecting two to make, I was given about 1.5 pounds of clay to create my work. I started off by rolling two slabs, one was fairly thick to use as the base of the candlestick as I knew I would be carving the gills out later on and the other a little thinner to create a tube for the candle to sit in. I set the two bases in circular molds to allow gravity to give them a bit of a bowl-like or rather mushroom cap-like shape, and while this was setting up I slipped and scored on the stem. On the one style of mushroom, I also added a ring around the stem using a smaller coil. For this project, I needed to wait after every step to allow the work to set up before adding on or carving away from it, which is why the very last step was to use a metal tool to carve out the gills and smooth everything out. 

My original idea for this project was going to be a water pitcher with a wave crashing over the side as the handle, but with the limited time and clay, I started looking for other less complicated and smaller functional objects. I had thought of making candlesticks in the past, so I figured that may be a good starting point and I randomly came across a close up photo of the gills of mushrooms and became inspired by them. From there, it was just about researching mushroom forms and then adapting my clay to somewhat accurately imitate them, which meant at times adding clay by slipping and scoring or letting it set up before carving chunks away again. All in all, it was definitely experimental as I had never made anything like this, but I put some thought into the height of the stem and width of the cap or base to truly make it functional. One oversight, however, was that I should have measured the diameter of an average candle to see how big to make the tube that would hold it on my candlestick, although I believe it will be alright as I went back in later and carved out some of the inside to create more space. I also wasn't sure how the gills would turn out, I ended up carving them somewhat roughly and chaotically but am actually very happy with how these came out.