Totems

What is a totem?  

An object that is respected by a group of people, especially for religious reasons (Cambridge Dictionary)

A natural object or animal that is believed by a particular society to have spiritual significance and that is adopted by it as an emblem. (Oxford Dictionary)

The Aborigine people of Australia may refer to a yam tree as being the incarnation of a long lost relative, a wooden carving on a house could be a Maori god's blessing on a house in New Zealand, a carved stone figurine could be a Mayan fertility symbol, or a cross could be an expression of Christianity.  Each of these objects represent an aspect of a belief system for each of its peoples.  Evidently totems are varied in their imagery as in their material or their represented context.

I chose to explore the making of totems in glass and how the colours can be used to represent an aspect of their origins.  I chose these three from the many styles of totems I had researched.  They are Egyptian, Polynesian and Maori.

 

I simplified their designs for the purposes of making glass maquettes.

I then created clay models of each of the totems and then created the plaster moulds.

I then selected glass colours that represented my interpretation of the beliefs of those societies:

Blue and clear for the source of the river Nile and the life it gave the Egyptians,

Orange and Yellow for the fiery volcanos that created the pacific islands  and sacrificial practices of the Polynesians,

Green and amber to reflect the rich vegetation and earthiness of New Zealand. 

I cut the glass into small strips and mixed the colours prior to placing them in the moulds so that I had a variegated effect in the casts. 

Once the totems had been cast and annealed, they were broken out from the mould and cleaned up, removing all of the bits of trapped plaster and any excess and sharp edges of the glass casting process. 

The finished totems picked up most of the model's details and I was very pleased with the colour combinations and variegations of each of them, I feel this process captured my intention very well. 

Left, Right or Onwards?

As time has marched on at a pace I now find myself at a crossroads.  Three potential themes have merged from my mind mapping and research, namely, totems, death masks and the sun, specifically its rise and fall.

  

Each of these themes have been represented in various forms across many belief systems and throughout all of human history.  It is strange how the movement of mankind, and their development in isolation can result in common elements to their societies growth, such as face masks of the Mayans, the Maoris, the Egyptians and Victorian Britain.

 

My next step is to explore each of these themes in terms of my artistic expression of what the research means to me and how I can express each of the themes in a contemporary style.  Equally, I would like to consider how each area of development could be perceived two hundred or two thousand years from now; why do we assume we understand what a jade figure represents to an ancient civilisation, it is the best guess of archaeologists based on their interpretation of the facts they unearth.  So, what would the archaeologist of tomorrow make of my art pieces and, more importantly, what will they convey about my life well after my death.

I am loving this brief.

Okay the, lets start venturing in all directions, left, right and onwards...