HAMBRE DEL ALMA: NOURISHING THE HUNGRY SOUL
A thesis submitted to the College of the Arts
of Kent State University in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Master of Fine Arts
by
Megan K. Tuttle
December, 2009
Thesis written by
Megan K. Tuttle
A.A., Pasadena City College, 1995
B.A., University of Santa Cruz, 2000
M.F.A., Kent State University, 2009
Approved by
_________________________________________ , Advisor
Kirk Mangus
_________________________________________ , Director, School of Art
Christine Havice
_________________________________________ , Interim Dean, College of the Arts
John R. Crawford
ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................... iii
LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................................... iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................v
DEDICATION ................................................................................................................... vi
HAMBRE DEL ALMA: NOURISHING THE HUNGRY SOUL ........................................1
TECHNICAL INFORMATION ..........................................................................................4
FIGURES .............................................................................................................................5
WORKS CITED ................................................................................................................16
iii
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure
Page
1.
Installation View One ..............................................................................................5
2.
Third Eye Flight .......................................................................................................6
3.
Third Eye Flight, rear view. .....................................................................................7
4.
Look, Shiny Thing! ...................................................................................................8
5.
Look, Shiny Thing!, side view ..................................................................................9
6.
Look, Shiny Thing!, aerial view .............................................................................10
7.
Wolves in the Shop .................................................................................................11
8.
Wolves in the Shop, left side view. ........................................................................12
9.
Where the City Meets Sea and Sky .........................................................................13
10.
Where the City Meets Sea and Sky, rear view ........................................................14
11.
Installation View Two............................................................................................15
iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First and foremost, I want to express my gratitude to Kirk Mangus and Eva
Kwong for their extraordinary support and patience throughout my graduate studies. You
not only taught me, but you helped make Kent home while I have been far away from
mine. Thanks to all my committee members for their dedication, time, and insight. To
my Kent friends, especially the Summer 2009 woodfiring crew, whether you pushed me,
fed me, or encouraged me, and particularly if you did the heavy lifting, thank you.
To Pati Maez, Karen Sullivan, and Philip Cornelius: you were with me every step
of the way, and you always inspire me.
And last but by no means the least, to Dong Jun Shin and Brinsley Tyrrell: words
are not enough. My heartfelt thanks to you both, beyond.
v
For my mother and father
with love
vi
HAMBRE DEL ALMA: NOURISHING THE HUNGRY SOUL
I spent the decade preceding graduate school working a corporate job, all the
while denying myself the creative life that I wanted. I chose “hambre del alma,”1 which
means “soul famine,” as part of my title to describe that past. This recent series of work
represents breaking free of that cycle and coming back into my own.
For my thesis show, I decided to explore the relationship between my love for
stories and my sculpture. I have a long-standing fascination with fairytales and folktales,
particularly the kinds that do not end well. Plot development often depends on the choice
of a happy or sad ending, and the narrative inevitably falls somewhere in the middle,
which brings up another universal dilemma in storytelling: where to begin and where to
end. The writer and the visual artist face this same problem.
While I wrestled with how to best address this, I had a dream about a gallery
installation. The dream involved four open heads with people, animals, and other
amorphous objects spilling out of the tops of the heads. Peering into one of the heads
was the full standing figure of a young girl. I knew that I wanted to translate this vision
from dream space to ceramic.
1
“Hambre del alma” is a Spanish language term used by scholar Clarissa Pinkola-Estés meaning “soul
famine” or “soul starvation.” It is part of her analysis of a German-Magyar folktale entitled “The Little
Red Shoes,” and she broadens the definition to explain what happens to someone when they keep
themselves from creating or are prevented from creating for too long: they try to fill their life with empty
things, and are ultimately themselves left empty. Pinkola-Estés, Clarissa. Women Who Run With the
Wolves, New York: Ballantine, 1995. 227-228.
1
2
I started working on the heads and the standing girl, thinking that I would add the
animals and objects towards the finish. As the work progressed I became more interested
in the heads. After building the first one, I realized the possibilities of using intuitive
painting and language on the heads’ surfaces. The painting would provide a means of
conveying the dream imagery, eliminating the need for a whole environment of smaller
objects.
Where structure is concerned, Third Eye Flight stands alone in its complete
irreverence to actual anatomy [see Figure 2]. I endeavored to reference ancient Olmec
heads by building it virtually without a neck, which gave it an appearance of heaviness.
As soon as I commenced painting on the piece, the loosely associated images challenged
the structural lines and obscured any hint of its vaguely Olmec beginnings. I populated
the surface with whatever crossed my mind, predominately birds and imagined
landscapes.
The second head, Look, Shiny Thing! Grew a little bit more realistic and I gained
confidence in its form as sculpture [see Figure 4]. I refined the head, and modeled the
nose and other features from life instead of basing them on imagination. Of the four,
Look, Shiny Thing! is closest to a self-portrait---I even painted a caricature of myself on
the left side of the piece [see Figure 5]. Everything from professors’ quotes to clay
formulas and a word search sprawl across the exterior.
Wolves in the Shop is third in the series [see Figure 7]. With it I challenged
myself to sculpt a less familiar profile. In my earlier work I frequently relied on the eyes
to set the expression for a face, so I intentionally gave the facial muscles a half-smirk and
3
slightly opened the mouth [see Figure 8]. Wolves, with its air of skepticism, serves as a
fair psychological portrait of my state of mind during the actual construction of the head.
Last in the group, Where the City Meets Sea and Sky towers above the others [see
Figure 9]. The elongation of the neck allowed the height of the sculpture to equal that of
a five foot tall person; it also opened up a much larger surface area to contend with for a
canvas. With this extra expanse came an opportunity, which I tried to tackle by treating
the painting in a more minimalist fashion. This is the only head with an almost
uncluttered face.
During much of my graduate studies, although the work was consistently
figurative, there was a disconnection between my affinity for narrative and my sculpture.
While my thesis show did not tell a parable in any transparent manner, I think that this
body of work succeeds in chronicling the trajectory of my creative process and telling my
story. The painting on the heads is actually a stream of consciousness that allowed me to
document my thoughts as I worked. Treating the sculptures as canvasses for words and
images permitted the incorporation of autobiographical elements. Just like the
unexpected plot twist in a novel, my thesis work took a direction I had not anticipated
when I set out to create it. I am excited to pursue these ideas wherever they may lead me
in the future.
TECHNICAL INFORMATION
Base Slip (Cone 06 – 12)
White Sculpture Clay Body
(Cone 5 –10)
Edgar’s Plastic Kaolin
25
Ball Clay
25
Flint
25
Gerstley Borate
12
Nepheline Syenite
13
Colorants:
Black (reduction) / Green-Black
(oxidation):
Cobalt Carbonate
2%
Manganese Dioxide
5%
Chrome Oxide
1%
6 – Tile Kaolin
30
Fredericksberg Fire Clay
20
Sand
10
Nepheline Syenite
15
Coarse Grog
12.5
Medium Grog
12.5
OM – 4 Ball Clay
2 - 3 scoops
Buff Sculpture Body (Cone 5 – 10)
6 – Tile Kaolin
20
Fredericksberg Fire Clay
20
Cedar Heights Redart
10
Sand
10
Nepheline Syenite
15
Coarse Grog
12.5
Medium Grog
12.5
OM -- 4 Ball Clay
2 – 3 scoops
Kevin McCreary’s Dense
White Slip (Cone 4 – 10)
Custer Feldspar
Flint
Edgar’s Plastic Kaolin
Nepheline Syenite
Ball Clay
Add: Zircopax
25
25
25
12.5
12.5
10%
Additionally, the following commercial
products were used:
Duncan Envision Glazes
Amaco Velvet Underglazes
Mayco Glazes
Windsor & Newton Acrylics
4
5
Figure 1. Installation View One
6
Figure 2. Third Eye Flight
7
Figure 3. Third Eye Flight, rear view
8
Figure 4. Look, Shiny Thing!
9
Figure 5. Look, Shiny Thing!, side view
10
Figure 6. Look, Shiny Thing!, aerial view
11
Figure 7. Wolves in the Shop
12
Figure 8. Wolves in the Shop, left side view
13
Figure 9. Where the City Meets Sea and Sky
14
Figure 10. Where the City Meets Sea and Sky, rear view
15
Figure 11. Installation View Two
WORKS CITED
Pinkola-Estès, Clarissa. “Self-Preservation: Identifying Leg Traps, Cages, and Poisoned
Bait,” Women Who Run With the Wolves. New York: Ballantine Press, 1995.
16