Recipes for Conceptual Clay

Lil Monster:  A Chronic Pain Visualization

​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.