Hi all! I started building this sculpture for my sister who recently went through lung cancer and is now thankfully in remission. It’s a set of ceramic lungs. My sister actually had the top two thirds of her right lung removed. I’m now trying to decide how to represent that in this sculpture. Maybe with some etching or a transfer (which I don’t know how to do) or something else. The clay is leather hard, or more, but back in a damp box.
How would you proceed? Looking for some real honest feedback here about how to get better. What textures could I try? My inspiration came from these images but obviously they’re different mediums than ceramics.
I have some questions and thoughts, and they’re reflecting my own experience, so take them or leave them - no response necessary, but things to consider…
Based on the inspo, I’m guessing you’re looking for something positive or pretty, but she had part of one removed…Do you want to represent that in the piece? I had a tumor removed many years ago and when I was making art to represent it and process it for myself, the body was pure white and the removed/infected area was black. That’s very different than the inspo photos, which I applaud. I have seen people in the support communities with joyful, colorful celebrations of the healing and recovery. All of this to say that the feelings of the recipient/patient should influence your choices.
The inspo pics have a few throughlines, a variety of colors, and “veins”. If I were going this route I would paint underglaze designs in her favorite colors, whatever she loves. Or a few shades and tints of her favorite color, like a range of blues or greens.
Your message and intention should inform the piece, and the pipe down the middle looks like a trunk. If you want to theme it for growth, you could use leafy or viney plants in shades of green. Still underglaze or underglaze transfers.
If you want to carve and then add glazes instead of illustrations like the inspo, many of the above suggestions still track - vines and leaves, maybe water/river carvings to imitate the dendritic structure that plants and rivers share. I have been playing with celadons and gradients with those, so theoretically you could use several different colors over a textured surface, the celadons will puddle and be darker in the carved spaces.
A celebratory pop-art execution could be Mondrian-esque color blocks, Yayoi Kusama-style colors and dots, or a Warhol-like image transfer. You could also look at wrapping it with underglaze transfers.
For the colorful stuff, I’ve seen some really good executions online of a Stroke & Coat rainbow of colors with Honey Flux so it’s like a river of rainbows going down the piece. I wouldn’t carve if I was choosing the reactive or fluxing glazes because your hard work wouldn’t be seen under the surface of some of the thicker glazes.
Hope this helps you generate inspiration!
TL;DR Choose what you want the piece to represent, then choose the execution. If I carved I would stick to celadons or wipe back and underglaze stain. If I wanted reactive glazes, I’d not carve, and a thematic painting or printing process might not need to be carved either.
Thanks for letting me drone on lol I look forward to seeing what you do!!!
One, I’m so glad you’re okay and that you no longer have a tumor. Two, you actually have no idea how helpful these suggestions are. I like the idea of doing a two tone sculpture coloring the removed sections in one color. But I also like the pop art style you suggested as well. I might need to go that route. Thank you!
One reason that most of Amaco’s Potter’s Choice glazes have a carved design in the “here’s what it’s supposed to look like” picture is that those are supposed to pool and be multi-toned in flat and lower areas.
Congratulations to your sister and family Glad yall got to ring the bell!
I agree with thinking about how your sister might want to view it.
Here are more ideas for you as you’re exploring styles:
leaving the either the 2/3 portion unglazed, or the rest unglazed.
palladium or something shiny/glittery
add flowers on top of the 2/3 lung section
replace 2/3 lung section and add a sculpture of flowers, your sister dancing, or something else to fill the space but in roughly the same shape
have that 2/3 section be like a jar lid that you can remove or stack! You can hide another sculpture inside the empty space, or make the right lung into 2 “blocks” that sit on each other.
Your sculpture looks amazing. Your sisters gonna love it!
Make sure your art fully dries before bisque firing!
Glad yall got to ring the bell!