Stimulation: From a Starving Artist (Platter 1)

5.6" x 17.5" x 17.5"

This series of platters is a piece about gifts, talents, the pursuit of art, offering, and taking. I use collection plates from churches, which I've made in ceramic and chrome glaze, as the vehicle for this message.

I've summarized this overarching discussion with a thought (which I painted on the wall of my exhibition): "Sometimes I just want to take the hard feeds and starve and bite it for more than I'm worth." Jumping into the starving artist trope with reckless abandon, with the desire for more. That desire for more is referenced in the last of the platters, where taking that bite from the gift-giver is shown.

There's a latent frustration in pursuing the arts because a gift or talent is rarely rewarded in the ways we want, which is something I've been told my whole life. But, despite that, I've chased this dream so far as to desire even more from myself and my art to get to where I want to be. That desire has led me to neglect other things in life. That level of desire can be akin to a hunger, and that hunger may lead to biting the head of the creator to take more of that creative energy to pursue one's goal. And that is the message and the discussion presented in this series.

referencing historical works of art such as "The Creation of Adam" by Michelangelo and "Saturn Devouring His Son" by Goya