I was recently able to have my mother record herself singing the song she used to sing to me as a child.

This was used as a lullaby for me. I have no clue why she sang to me about watermelons and seeds but I understand now. I was a child and a little kid eating watermelon seeds could result in choking.

Listening to it now, it seems a little ridiculous but also nostalgic for the times where I would only worry about swallowing watermelon seeds.

I mean to this day I still do not swallow watermelon seeds. I know there is nothing wrong with swallowing the seeds but it just puts me off, swallowing them.

Big Watermelon, How good it is!
Everyone wants to eat it.

Not being careful, swallowed… a few round seeds — Ai Ya Ya

I asked mommy, “What should I do?”

A melon will grow from the top of my head!

Mommy laughed and said, “Lots of melons will grow for us to eat”

From spring to winter. There will be melons all year long.

 

 

My piece will be more of a performance rather than a sculptural. I decided to try something new that I do not usually do. I would prefer not to have me or my body in the piece but I think it is good to spread myself out and try other media.

Hence why I will be filming myself.

I think what I’m planning on doing will be pretty simple.

I will be presenting 2 watermelons. Checking the sound, the smell, the shape. Everything about it.

I will then be preparing it (i.e. cutting it up, I am contemplating the strength and speed as to which that will happen but I might just leave it for the moment).

After cutting the watermelon, I will plate it and then eat all of the watermelons. Seeds and all to show that what my mother told me as a child and what I learned was all but a little white lie so that I would not choke on a watermelon seed.

After going through all the links and readings provided I came to the conclusion that I’m leaning towards mythology, deceit, lying, being two-faced, etc.

I was reading the article, http://www.lewishyde.com/publications/trickster/tour-the-ideas

It’s interesting how every culture has at least one mischievous character in their lore.

A specific quote that I really liked was, “A long tradition locates human creativity in the same shady area. ‘Art is a lie that makes us realize truth,’ said Picasso”.

Me being who I am and loving my culture and that of my friends and families I became attracted to Asian mythology, Chinese Idioms (also known as Chengyu) and much more.

 

But nothing really came to mind other than creating a human face with the opposite side being a fox (leading to the myth of foxes being sneaky and maybe two-faced) similar to this animation.

The animation is The White Snake.

—————————LOTS   OF   THINKING————————

 

After what felt like a while I remembered old Chinese wives’ tales my mom used to tell me when I was little to get me to behave.

Some of them being:

 

Do not whistle at night, it will attract snakes to you.

Don’t trim your nails at night, snakes will come or your soul will escape your body or you will die early.

Do not shake your leg, you will shake away all your luck.

Not to swallow seeds from fruits or it’ll grow out of the top of your head. (This I remember well, I even remember a song my used to sing to me)

Sleeping with wet hair will give you headaches or cause dementia.

For every grain of rice, you leave in your bowl is the number of pimples your future spouse will have.

Moles near the mouth show you’re a greedy eater, can’t share.

Don’t sleep facing a mirror or you’ll wake up being stared at

After you finish eating don’t rub your belly or your tummy will get bigger.

 

Some of these are just weird and I want to play off of that.

Obviously, these are lies parents tell their kids to stop them from doing things but it’s fun to think back on them and realize how batshit crazy they are.

 

 

 

Submission

Art as Daily Life

This is a continuation of my project from last semester.

I decided to create 6 other iterations of my piece from flowers and plants that I have either dried or just let wither away.

This is the original

Now here are the 6 iterations

                           

                           

                           

 

 

A not so new concept that I have been working on is the relationship between hair, skin, growth, and preservation. 

This all started last semester when Covid-19 hit and classes were moved online. My Intro to Low Fire class decided to have small projects where we would create forms and sculptures out of miscellaneous objects we had laying around.

In the beginning, I had trouble finding random objects around my apartment since each object held a sentimental value to myself and I didn’t want to change them or take them apart.

Days went by and I was brushing my cat when something just popped into my head. “My cat’s fur.” I brush it out and throw it away, I don’t have any sentimental value towards it and nor does my cat. The only thing he does with the fur I brush out is to eat it.

So why not use it?

As this idea formed more, the reasons or meanings behind this became more clear and I was able to create a piece.

 

 

This was the piece and along with it, I wrote this, “This abstract sculpture was created from a wine cup that my significant other gave me, balls of fur from my cat that I adopted and dead branches of a plant I was gifted when I moved into my apartment. The color palette of this piece is centered around the more neutral colors of the world such as browns, whites, and blacks. Now I chose this color palette because I wanted a gradual change in the color or concept in general. Similar to my inspirational piece with the color slowly changing, I wanted to emanate that with the abstract sculpture. The exercise before this was more colorful and vibrant to match the dusty purple of the flower and now this exercise is more neutral to match the parts of the flower that lost its vibrancy but still has color. This piece is interesting to me because it involves textures that you wouldn’t really see together. The plants growing out of fur is unnatural and strange and the fact that it’s in a wine glass just makes it even more strange. I guess the mood I want to convey in the end is just the beauty of life and how strange it can be.”

 

 

 

Here I am now

Now I’m going to continue this piece with iterations.

But as I created more the concept changed slightly. When you see the wine cup and fur, they don’t belong. Hair and something that is used to eat or drink mixed together gives off a repulsive feeling. They aren’t meant to be together as well as fur or hair being able to produce something after it. Hair is considered “dead” there shouldn’t be anything that grows from it, in fact once something living dies the fur or hair takes significantly longer to decompose. Human hair in fact takes about 2 years to decompose after death.

But there is also the concept that I have realized that I’ve been circling around. It’s the concept of skin, of a covering. I was just recently told of how my work seems to center around perception, layers, outside vs. inside, what is perceived and what is not, etc.

Skin

So I have come to, skin or the outer layer. With humans, it’s your skin but with animals it’s fur.

Now I’m at a point where it’s kind of confusing, “what am I really trying to get to?”

 

As of right now, I’m not sure.

I’ve just been creating what has been popping into my mind

Whatever comes after that, whether it’s a constant medium or an underlying message is something to think about later.

 

Taking a break from folding

As I was folding more cranes I realized I didn’t want this to be my first project. The more I folded the more I realized that I didn’t want to stop at a certain amount. With what I wanted to create I would need much more, so I decided that this would be an ongoing project. As I work on others this one will still be going on.

I decided to take a break from folding to focus on another work.

 

But before I write about that I found through discussions with Carmel a phenomenon called a murmuration. “This refers to the phenomenon that results when hundreds, sometimes thousands, of starlings fly in swooping, intricately coordinated patterns through the sky. ”

https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2017/01/04/506400719/video-swooping-starlings-in-murmuration#:~:text=Murmuration%20refers%20to%20the%20phenomenon,this%20one%20is%20especially%20beautiful.

I found the formations of thousands of birds to be captivating. That made me think, I need to make more. If a murmuration is something I want to recreate than this needs to be an ongoing project. This would also be better shown in a location that is not my apartment. I need a bigger more open space to show this.

While searching for the paper I came across some interesting flower wrapping paper.

There’s this opalescent effect that reflects light nicely and is one aspect I was looking for.

A good reflection of light.

I recently started this habit where I buy flowers for myself almost every week. Because of all the flowers I now have a lot of dried flowers in my possession.

What could I possibly make out of them?Maybe a room with flowers hanging from the ceiling.

Transitioning from live flowers to dried or wilted.
Process of life?

 

My name is Amber Ly, I’m a fourth-year BFA student majoring in Studio Art (emphasis in Sculpture).

This will be an area where I will just brain fart and word vomit all thoughts on artworks that I want to create.

So if you want to delve into my mess of a brain, feel free to peruse.