Endangered Species Ceramic Bowl

Purpose:

• To become familiar with using endangered species as an art subject

• To learn about photographer, Joel Satore and painter, Anne London, as well as the highly patterned art (alebrijes) from Oaxaca, Mexico

• To become acquainted with basic ceramic vocabulary

• To form and paint a ceramic animal bowl that contains both imagery of an endangered or threatened species of your choice and indication of the systems around it which promote that animal’s survival.

Artist and Art Culture Studied: Anne London (painter) and Joel Satore (photographer), along with Oaxacan "alebrijes" (art) from Mexico

Reflection:

I am helping spread awareness about endangered animals by creating my ceramic bowl of the Black-Footed Ferret, which is an endangered species. By creating a ceramic bowl, I lure people in to look at my pretty creation, and then once the viewers realize that the cute animal is endangered, they are likely to be more sympathetic to increase funding for systems that help protect endangered and threatened species. I hope that the viewers of my bowl come out of it with an understanding that we only have one Earth, and minimizing waste while having respect for the environment will be essential moving forward as a society.

As I mentioned in the previous prompt, I chose the Black-Footed Ferret as my endangered animal to complete this assignment. I chose this animal because the original images of it were very cute and aesthetically pleasing. Also, I was struck by the profound fact that this animal was thought to be extinct 40 years ago, but has since made a recovery with extensive help from human protectors. I wanted to draw and paint the Black-Footed Ferret in order to spread this story with everyone who views my piece of art. Black-Footed Ferrets live in preexisting prairie dog burrows, spending most of their lives underground because they are nocturnal. Not only does the Black-Footed Ferret live in these prairie dog burrows, but they also eat the prairie dogs that live in the surrounding areas! I showed that the ferrets eat the prairie dogs in my bowl by painting two of the smaller animals in the stomach of my large Black-Footed Ferret. The burrows where the animals live are scattered across the states in the Northern Great Plains, which include Colorado, Nebraska, and the Dakotas. These plains vary in terrain, but I chose to display the more rugged terrain (sandy soil, small bushes) in the background of my bowl in order to highlight the struggles that the Black-Footed Ferrets have faced throughout the past century. The species is endangered due to loss of habitat at the beginning of the 20th century in the Great Plains, along with susceptibility to disease. However, with extensive help from human protectors, the Black-Footed Ferret has gone from “Declared Extinct” to a population of 200-300 within 40 years -- a major accomplishment!