2000.3 - LIDDED CONTAINER

This piece has never been one of my favorites, but it marked the beginning of the ‘screw up the final’ game I played with Bruce. The final was supposed to be a lidded container. I was out the day that Bruce showed slides of the jars and boxes that had lids, and when I returned, he told me that I would just have to get the instructions from my friends in the class. To me, this sounded like a major challenge to my creativity, and I decided to have a bit of fun. In a museum, I saw a very colorful woman’s head, and got a good giggle thinking about the story I would tell. After all, the story about a piece of art is often better than the art, itself. In this case, I didn’t make a box or jar at all. Instead, I made a tall thin head that reminds me of Easter Island, or the wicked witch of the west. If you look at her, you will see that she is emotionally contained, and she has heavily lidded eyes. When I first presented the piece, I put false eyelashes on it. Even though I bought cheap ones, I needed a lot of eyelashes, and it ended up being expensive. I didn’t put any glaze on this piece. Instead, I smoked it using raku techniques. Unfortunately, this piece had difficulties, and the nose fell off. Raku pieces really are fragile.