Hidden Beauty

This artwork is a set of ceramic nesting bowls designed to look like geodes. From the outside, a hard and bumpy rock exterior. But from the inside, a beautiful shimmering gem. This set consists of three bowls, all stacked within each other and designed so that you can see all the bowls at once. When making this artwork, I wanted to play with texture and color. The outside of each bowl accomplishes my texture goal. You are able to take your hand and run it along the side and feel all of the bumps and ridges I pressed into the surface of the clay. An underglaze was used to create the color on the bowl; then, I went in with a clear gloss glaze on the inside to make sure it was shiny, leaving the outside with a matte rock exterior. Another element I wanted to play around with was the idea of creating a family portrait in a less traditional style. This required thinking outside of the box. When looking overhead at my bowls, they reminded me a little of an eye. From that realization, my idea started to take shape. The inside of the largest bowl was glazed in blue, which is the color of my dad's eyes. The medium bowl was glazed with green, the color of my mom's eyes. For the smallest bowl, I was a little stumped about what color to use because I have three brothers, and we each have different colored eyes. I finally decided to use reds and purples, which, to me, were colors that signified love and brought the entire picture together.