First project: natural vs. man-made

Responding to my initial man-made piece I wanted my natural piece also to have wings and a trunk. I also thought to add some extra handbuilding techniques. So, this one was made including slabs, pinching and coiling.

I approached this half of the project very similar the the first by firstly sourcing images of patterns and then making a selection of little trials in clay.

From this I selected which would be the most appropriate to use for my piece. I coiled a body and made the trunk first. These I played around with to find the best and most pleasing arrangement. I had a hard time steering it away from an association with a shoe or a wooden clog.

The building process for this natural piece was much more complicated and time consuming. Because of the angle at which the wings stand off from the body I paid special attention to reinforcing all the joins with extra little coils.

The longer I worked on this, the more it felt like it resembled both a swan and one of the figures from Francis Bacon's Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Cruxifixction, ca 1944. I quite like the awkwardness of my piece and that the figure seems to be looking backwards.