Creative Figure Sculpture: Drawings

Untitled

Pastel and charcoal on paper; mounted on pre-shaped paper backing

No. 1;

Toilet paper on black matte board.

Survival is about looking out for No. 1; how you do so depends on the situation and what resources are available.

This piece came together as I was finishing the book Journey Across Tibet, by Sorrel Wilby (1988); she had been traveling with the nomads across Tibet for the past three and a half months, nearly losing her life a couple of times and on one of her first encounters with a Westerner he gives her 6 pieces of his precious toilet paper as a gift. She has not seen, or even thought of toilet paper for months, as she has adapted to, and adopted the way of life of the nomads. Although very thoughtful of him, to Sorrel the toilet paper represented how different the Western outlook on the world is compared to the Tibetans’. This occurrence helped to solidify in her mind that being truly happy means being completely happy with what you have, and not worrying about what you don’t have. The realization itself was much more impactful then the material gift itself. As I was reading, my mind was also pondering the question of survival and what to include for entry in this month’s show. I realized that I had to do something with T.P.; toilet paper, something that going without would traumatize many Westerners, and yet is definitely not critical to survival. What better way to question what we truly need? In actually creating the piece I experimented with placing the strip of toilet paper on the black matting in various configurations to come up with an interesting design. When I realized that the vertical banner on a black field could be representative of the numeral one (or the letter ‘I’) I decided that this would be the most relevant design to use for this theme.