Constancy-2

Again, poor photos due to being shot by me with my point and shoot.sorry.

statement:

The title of this piece is constancy. For this project I wanted to use the required materials (plaster and ready-made materials) to illustrate a sense of faith. For many people faith is something that drives their day, and for others it is something that they reject. Both of these attitudes towards faith are something that I wanted to explore with this piece, as both are to be considered constancy. The concept of faith is to have an overwhelming trust in something that is unknown. When one is younger they trust religion without questioning its stories and rules, but as one ages a sense of doubt is cast on man religious beliefs. It is at this time that one decides their faith- whether it be united with an organized religion, personal, or nonexistent depends upon their experiences and surrounding. For myself faith is personal,I was not raised in a religious home however, I feel a connection with a god and don't need reassurance from an organized religion to feel faithful. I believe that questioning faith desires an element of child-like curiosity or wonder, and I wanted to capture this urge to explore in my piece.

Initially I wanted the piece to only be an exploration of childhood in general- the sense of wonder and relaxation that one feels as a child, the strong imagination. However, as I worked with my original materials, namely gummy bears, I began to feel very frustrated. This is when I decided that I should dissect the aspects of faith that allowed me to call upon my own faith when it felt like nothing was going quite right. I always wanted to create an environment that one interacted with, that one was forced to interact with or they would find themselves without understanding of the piece. My piece is essentially a tent that if viewed from the sides is translucent. Within the tent there is a light that is producing a colored glow and has a base that is reminiscent of the heavens. Inside the tent there and clothes-pins that are holding pieces of paper, on which are written the prayers of people I know. The prayers or hopes are unknown to me, but I have faith that people were honest and serious when they wrote on the cards. The papers are hanging from the crossbar of the tent as well as scattered on the ground around the light source. Also on the floor are black feathers and colored lights that represent doubt and hope that surround religion-the light source.

In conclusion this piece is about myself and also about everyone else, it is about what we feel as constancy- it is about our faith in ourselves as well as God. To construct the tent I used a translucent plastic drop cloth, pvc piping, and white picnic table covers. The light source is made of an recycled lamp base, floral lights, plaster treated with spray paint, chicken-wire, clear plastic kitchen wrap, painted butcher paper, and liquin. The prayers are written on paper from a moleskin notebook that I write in daily and are closed by clothespins given to me from a friends aunt whom I was once close with.