Historical inspiried

Artist Statement

For this assignment, we were asked to find a pot that is at least 1000 years old. Ultimately we will be creating a pot that mirrors the form of your historical pot then you will make it contemporary. I chose a pot that dates back to multiple decades into BCE. This pot is Balkans Chalcolithic and was a good inspiration for my prehistoric pot. I used normal clay for this project and used coil techniques(as shown below) to create this. I used the split and score method to connect these and then smoothed out the surface in order to develop the shape I wanted. This process is slightly new to me but I thought it worked pretty well especially since this was a tall project. At first, I wanted this piece to be decorative and fun to look at but as I went on I found this it would actually be a good piece to use as a vase. Throughout this project, I was trying to replicate the form of the original prehistoric pot that I was using as my inspiration, although it didn't come out exactly the same I thought the idea of having it be similar was portrayed well. 

I wanted to include a smooth texture on the outside of this pot since I am assuming the original pot, the one I am using for inspiration must have originally had a smooth outside to it as well. I thought this was an important element to having a replication of the same outcome and look at the structure. I also wanted to value the form of the form. I thought this was important, and although it's not the same I thought the proportions of the forms to allow them to look similar were important. I wanted the "face" of the structure to have the same look and style. For principles of design, I thought a lot about patterns. Since the prompt is to have a contemporary finish, I thought adding my element of color to create a pattern was important. So, I added pink, yellow, and orange dots all around which gave it a little bit of a "feminine" feel which is what I was going for. I did this color and pattern with underglaze because I liked the brightness of these colors. 

Overall, I wanted to create a vase that had a prehistoric nature but a feminine contemporary twist to the outside.  I wanted this to be very colorful and be a statement piece when used on a table or shelf. I thought this vase would ultimately be a great gift for my mother whose favorite vase recently shattered in an unfortunate event. I wanted her to enjoy this as a holiday gift and be able to put all the flowers from her garden in it. I am more proud of the size of this artwork. I like the form and shape but the size ultimately was most difficult to accomplish since this was a tall project. The coils overall helped me with this but throughout the project, it was hard to not let gravity overtake the project and have the work have a bottom-heavy and stable base. I struggled with this idea of a stable base but ultimately flattening out the "feet" of the vase and taking away clay from the walls to make them thinner helped with this concept. Overall I am proud of this artwork.