Artwork description: This piece is inspired by climbing vines. Vines can latch onto themselves and other plants when searching for stability. This acts as a metaphor for how we embrace others or ourselves during growth.
Artwork description long: "Through the Struggle" is a one-off piece that was made during a time of conflict. It is inspired by the behaviors exhibited by cucumber plants and specifically their propensity to shoot off vines in any direction to hook, climb, and advance their growth upward. Much like the growing vines, I tangled with another person who claimed the work was plagiarizing their own. Despite the tension, I decided to move forward and finish the piece, confident that the work would grow a different identity once completed. The process of creation began with molten glass; pulling, stretching, and curling the viscous material to represent the vines. The bases were inflated into a sphere and shaped into a point to act as a resting base and represent the seed. The glass vines were ground flat, and the work was sandblasted to highlight the silhouette of the individual components. Wooden finials were turned out of ziricote to act as a transitional bridge between the vine components and seed components to make the fitting of the two sculptures easier. The resulting piece can still be separated but the weight and composition of the individual pieces is unbalanced—only when the two pieces are joined together does the work rest at equilibrium. This reflects the end of the conflict I faced earlier, how growth is still accomplished during tension and uncertainty, how criticism and judgement don’t lead to an end, and how ideas can unravel through the struggle.
Artwork description long: "Through the Struggle" is a one-off piece that was made during a time of conflict. It is inspired by the behaviors exhibited by cucumber plants and specifically their propensity to shoot off vines in any direction to hook, climb, and advance their growth upward. Much like the growing vines, I tangled with another person who claimed the work was plagiarizing their own. Despite the tension, I decided to move forward and finish the piece, confident that the work would grow a different identity once completed. The process of creation began with molten glass; pulling, stretching, and curling the viscous material to represent the vines. The bases were inflated into a sphere and shaped into a point to act as a resting base and represent the seed. The glass vines were ground flat, and the work was sandblasted to highlight the silhouette of the individual components. Wooden finials were turned out of ziricote to act as a transitional bridge between the vine components and seed components to make the fitting of the two sculptures easier. The resulting piece can still be separated but the weight and composition of the individual pieces is unbalanced—only when the two pieces are joined together does the work rest at equilibrium. This reflects the end of the conflict I faced earlier, how growth is still accomplished during tension and uncertainty, how criticism and judgement don’t lead to an end, and how ideas can unravel through the struggle.