Endangered Species in New England

Project Goals

• To use art in raising awareness of Endangered Species in New England;

• To learn about artists who work with animals as their subjects, (specifically, Ami Vitale, Tim Christensen, Joel Sartore, Anne London, and Oaxacan Alebrijes from Mexico).

• To become acquainted with basic ceramic vocabulary;

• To learn about and find inspiration in the highly patterned art (Alebrijes) from Oaxaca, Mexico;

• To form and paint a low-relief ceramic tile that contains both imagery of a species of your choice and an indication of the systems around it which promote that species’ survival.

Artists and Art Culture Studied:

Ami Vitale, Tim Christensen, Joel Sartore, Anne London, and Oaxacan Alebrijes from Mexico.

Reflection:

I decided to make my tile into a very beachy theme, as my birds reside in beachy environments. So, in order to do that I added typical, common things such as sand, their footprints the sand, seaweed, waves, and the leaves on its head. In addition to that were the worms it digests and diamond-like feathers on its body. I think the beach environment gets the message across the most. Piping Plovers are beach birds, birds that live on the beachside and enjoy life there. As humans, we love and go to the beach a lot and my message is really to just say to leave them alone as we all go to the same area to enjoy life.

I love how the colors look, the color scheme is very diverse and with the three colors I had to use (cool), I think I did a very good job differentiating the colors from each other, including the background. You can see all different types of greens, blues, and purples/violets just looking at it and I think that's something I take much pride in. If I could change something about this, I’d probably make some color linesthinner and maybe brighten up the purple on the ground, making it more vibrant. This cool color scheme

is deep and cool, and opposes to the warm and light feeling of the piping plover and I found myself doing a good job portraying that opposition.

I found it important to know about my species as they are endangered and a portion of their kin live in Southern Maine themselves, our own state! I think what we can do as people is to leave the species alone if you see them if you're not going to do anything helpful. The species is especially vulnerable to human disturbances because they are ground nesting birds that reside on open, sandy shorelines—the same beaches people love to visit and hang out on and interact with the wildlife. If you see them, maybe call a wildlife area to help them and maybe they’ll be bred to continue numbers.