Artist Statement: This piece was created by sculpting ceramic clay around a wire armature base. From the start of this project, I always knew the final piece would be only these images, the rest falling aside. The nature of the medium of clay is that as water evaporates away, what remains shrinks and will crack if it comes up against something unmoving. Another characteristic of it that became of interest to me was the change in color and how the piece would be a gradient of them as the drying commenced. These elements in mind, after the initial sculpting was finished I waited until the work dried to the point seen here to photograph. 

The work itself addresses the inevitability and beauty of aging, evolving, maturing, and eventually falling back into what you were initially created from. Fittingly, my experiments in mold-making towards the end of casting the pieces to make them more permanent all failed in various disastrous at the time, now comical, ways.

Rachel Funk is a multidisciplinary artist and arts council director with a passion for connecting queer people of all identities, generations, and skill sets through a mutual love of art, making, and the acts of creating. Rachel studied ceramics, photography, art education, and art history at both Friends University of Central Kansas and South Dakota State University. She now resides in eastern South Dakota with her partner, their two small animals, many houseplants, and many more vintage records.