"Are you making a peach tree?"

The answer to that question is no. I cast peaches for a solid 3 weeks out of 4 molds. I started out using only the color of the plaster, which is of course white, and later experimented with adding liquid tempera to the wet plaster. I ended up with somewhere between 50 and 70 peaches, though I can't remember the exact number. (I've been extremely bad with counting these days.) My final critique was today at 5:45 pm... finished with Sculpture I forever. I got good reviews of this piece from both my Prof. and classmates. Let me know what you think.

I found that the liquid tempera broke down the quality of the plaster when added in large amounts. If only a small amount was added, there was little difference. Also, I played around with mixing a base color into the plaster and then adding some swirls right before pouring it into the molds to get some color variation. The swirled tempera had a hard time integrating into the plaster as it hardened, and left pockets of wet tempera even when the plaster was firm. This was an obvious issue, so I abandoned it for the most part. I also think that I used hydrocal instead of plaster for a few peaches because the peaches in question are much (and i mean MUCH) lighter weight wise than the others. Those peaches also took the color better, which makes me think I should have been using hydrocal rather than plaster in the first place.

The chair in all of it's grandfatherly glory. No, it's not made of solid clay. Disappointing I know. It's a hand-me-down chair from the field hockey house that was going to be put out for the trash man. Luckily I saved it just in time to coat it with slip. I mixed dry Holmer clay with water in the pug mill, and scooped all of that out into a bucket. (I had the bright idea that it might pug out... wrong) I coated this about 3 hours before the critique, and it was already drying enough to crack off. That was intentional, though, because it was part of my theme. This chair went in the dumpster after the crit... so sad.

The entire piece. The main idea is that we all have something that we want, but we know we shouldn't have no matter how right it seems. The viewer may not notice certain things about the piece from far away; the cracking and crumbling of the slip on the chair and the pure fact that the peaches are entirely unedible, but this becomes very apparent when the viewer gets progressively closer and closer. It's also a play on the Garden of Eden and the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Apples are commonly interpretted as the fruit from the tree, but instead of apples, I chose peaches. Peaches have a much more sensuous appeal, plus they are personally more appealing than apples. The fruit appears appetizing, but is better left alone, no matter how hungry one is. The chair is the spring from which the peaches originate and flow off of. It represents something so welcoming, so comfy, a place to rest, but symbolizes the place one never wants to be. The other students in my class had no clue what I was trying to do with this until I fully explained it, and that's how I intended it. It brings forward memories of loss, some vivid, some distant, but it's the common thread that everyone can connect with. Everything has or will experience such feelings. It's both a catalyst and an expression of personal feelings.


Love, from Kent, Ohio.