From that foggy and unclear place, I took small steps. I tried ideas with the heart of someone just throwing spaghetti on the wall to see what sticks. At this point, talking to others was really important. My friends could see things that I couldn’t. I sent them photos, and their interpretations gave me heart.

For example, I threaded bark fiber through the holes in the bone cubes, stuffed in hair, and inserted plaster orbs into the cavities. One friend said, that it looked more alive. So, I kept the stuff in, and made a second version with plaster orbs already inside.

When just cast, these cubes are pretty sealed in - the cavities only reveal themselves with poking, prodding, and vigorous sanding. I used the concrete outside my door, hence the rough surface.

And, I made other artifacts out of plaster, like these spheres from the bark fiber and plaster.

Everything I made though was hand-sized. A lot of Art is human-scale: meters by meters canvases or sculptures. It’s hard to feel like your tiny pieces are Art. When put together, they do they feel more like art?

And finally, a tip I picked up from a classmate - draw on photos.

From this came the idea to make an animation of the doodles.

And there you have it, where I was able to go from the pits of despair. And in my storytelling to my tutors, it all kinda pulled back into the inspiration I pulled from a quote from Magdalena Abakanowicz, “To make something more durable than myself would add to the imperishable rubbish
heaps of human ambitions, crowding the environment. If my thoughts and my imaginings, just as I, will turn to earth, so will the forms that I create and this is good.”