For my final project this semester, I want to build off of what I created at houseguest and mix a ceramic figure, crocheting, and printmaking.  I am wanting to focus on the digestive system, as well as the figure in a doctor's office environment.  The tissue above is stomach lining, which will be printed on fabric, and the digestive system will be crocheted and sitting inside the ceramic figure.

The other photo is of smaller in progress projects that are getting me to think about cells, form, and growth.

This week I focused on assembling my piece and adding in the last element of printed fabric.  We focused on setting up the show, as well as making an online version for people who cannot make it in person.  View online show here.

I am starting to work with fibers for this project for our Houseguest Show.  The intention with this part of the project is to connect the pelvis ceramic parts and the figure ceramic piece together with yarn fiber and tension.  The yarn will act as internal muscle and tissue that connect these body parts together, which are also the root of the pain in my personal experience.  

I got some good photos of me with my figure as I loaded it into a kiln to dry.  After that is bisquing and firing it in a gas kiln!  This figure will be apart of my Houseguest show!  Houseguest is a gallery in Louisville, KY.  My advanced ceramics class including BFA and Post-Bacc students will be showing work together!  More posts and photos to come!

I am so excited to announce this show I curated!  I'm really happy with how it came together, and now want to continue doing exhibitions and creating opportunities (hopefully with monetary prizes) for all kinds of marginalized artists.

About Silent Stories
Silent Stories was created with the intention to let those with marginalized identities speak about their experiences through art. This show is meant to be a collective work of many “silenced” voices in the art community. This show will promote and give voice to those stories, that no longer remain invisible.  This collection has turned into a worldwide voice for people with disabilities, people of color, and women.​

This particular collection revolves around the figure, the body, and the work's relation to its maker and the pandemic world we all live in today.
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​Created, curated, and juried by Carly Riegger

I decided to slip-trail the connective tissue design that will be also screen printed on the fabric accompanying the figure.  I chose to paint the design in places that I feel pain, or how pain radiates in my body from the central abdominal point.  I keep thinking about the overwhelming chronic pain that can quickly take over the body.

This piece will go along with the figure bust I posted about in the last post.  I will be roughing up the surface of the pelvis with slip and a shurform.  

These are the most recent prints I made on black and red fabric.  This will go along with one of my clay figure pieces.  The imagery is from intestine cells.

My intention for this piece is to express my disgust, uncomfortable, and upset feelings around my chronic pain during the pandemic.  This bust will have a stuffed pillow-like object between the hallow torso.  The pillow will (hopefully) be created out of handmade, screen printed fabrics, which I'm working on in my printmaking class.

​This sculpture came from an E-Book called Recipes for Conceptual Clay.  I chose the assignment Gaining Visibility, where one is supposed to create a visual representation of any invisible process.  I decided to create a visual representation of my chronic pain.  After deciding this, I realized that I never made the actual pain itself in clay.  I had only created figures in pain or dealing with pain, like myself.  I felt like this was a small breakthrough that could lead to something to add in my figurative work.  I’ve been adding decorative elements on the surface to represent tissue cells and other microscopic organisms that occur inside the body.  The sculpture also features “imbedded” spikes that seem to break through these cells.  I eventually hope to make the viewer uncomfortable and unsettled by these sculptures as I do with my own pain.

Totem (noun):
In its most specific sense, "totem" refers to to an emblematic depiction of something (such as an animal, plant, or supernatural being) gives a family or tribe its name and that often serves as a reminder of its ancestry. The term is also used broadly for any thing or person having particular emblematic or symbolic importance. 

​This art piece focuses on the specifics of my illness:  my hypermobile body.  It is the key quality that doctors and medical professionals judge, quantify, and prove my diagnosis.  In this artwork, I have used my hypermobile limbs to create a clay mold as a stand-alone object that “proves” my disability.  These fired clay pieces remove the invisible aspects of my illness and provide a tangible object that will stay around for thousands of years.  The permanence of clay and the totems that came out of this piece actively opposes the modern ideas that disabled lives can be “fixed” through eugenic technology.  I am here to say that disabled lives are valuable, futuristic, and an important part of the culture at large. ​

Alt Text:  Slide show flipping through photos.  These photos show three different blocks of clay that Carly, the artist, pressed her own hypermobile limbs.  She presses her knee, elbow, and bent hand into different blocks to capture the mold of her bendy body.