Gallery Talk

The first piece that caught my attention in the gallery was Chubby Yellow Makes Some Friends by Molly Parker Smith. Molly's sculptures reminded me of something I would find in Monsters Inc., which is my favorite kids movie. I thought they were cute, but different at the same time. When Molly got up and talked, she expressed her fascination with the process of decay and death. She told us that she liked to pick up road kill and watch it decay for inspiration. I was shocked when I found out that she had created Chubby Yellow Makes Some Friends. Molly said that she needed a break from decaying objects and just created pop culture monsters, which she said was an accident. All of her sculptures are done from coils of clay. Molly said she has an overactive imagination, and this is where her artwork comes from. I found it interesting that Molly said she leaves most of her pieces untitled to allow the viewer to create your own title; Chubby Yellow Makes Some Friends is one of the few pieces that she actually titled. The next piece that I found interesting was Who Speaks for Planet Earth? by Kate McIntosh. I had originally picked out the sculpture done by Kate because I thought it was creative, but once she explained the piece, she told us about the two pictures that she placed on the walls on each side of the sculpture of water, and it really tied into the sculpture and made one big display. The pictures really went well with the sculpture because it depicted the moon controlling the tides. Kate talked about how she thought that ceramics and photography go hand in hand, and this was a great representation of both. When Kate was talking, she said that she likes making things with her hands because it shapes who she is. Both pieces were created with different mind sets and for different reasons, but they were both aesthetically pleasing to me. The color scheme of Kate's display was great, and I also loved the bright colors that Molly used for the monsters.