The purpose of this project was to create a mandala, connecting to a bigger picture of the assignments we have been doing in this course, such as the books we are reading and the solos we have been realizing. The book that I read was Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer and the solos that we have done so far have been taste and touch.

I chose to make a plate mandala, because in the book Chris McCandless the main character, has this hunger for adventure and the need to break away from his family. Chris’s story ends when he loses his life from starvation and I related that to the plate as well. Also I got inspiration from the solo where we went to Whole Foods and were told to endure eating foods we have never eaten before. All of these experiences lead me to making my mandala onto a plate.

I am proud of sticking through this project on a time crunch. I guess I did not realize how much time and effort would have to go into this plate beforehand. Their were times where I wanted to throw it against a wall or smash it with a bat, or something. Anyways, I stuck through it and even towards the end I wanted to keep adding little details. Overall I was very proud of the outcome of this project.

I learned that working with clay takes more experience and time than I thought it would. I really had no idea what I was doing. I took a ceramics class my freshman year of high school but thats about it. I forgot all the little steps in how to make a real plate, a plate that maybe we could one day eat off of… I simply looked up ‘how to make a plate out of clay’ online, and followed some confusing directions. As I was working though, lessons from my ceramics class were coming back to me and it felt good to remember. I really enjoyed working with clay again and I hope to do other projects in the future with clay too!

BR Mandala Final

LEGEND OF SYMBOLS

  • Dandelion = Shows one’s journey through the past, present, and future. Each seed gets blown by the wind, not really knowing where it’s going or will land.
  • Stripes (Jail) = Represent the obstacles in life that make us feel trapped or imprisoned.
  • Leaves = Represent how delicate people’s emotions are. Also goes along with the touch solo.
  • Plate itself = Represents Chris McCandless’ hunger for adventure, his death from starvation, and the taste solo we experienced at Whole Foods.