Below are pictures of the 3rd piece from the series created for my solo undergrad show.
This is an aye-aye lemur. This endangered nocturnal species can only be found living in the forest in certain parts of Madagasgar. Because of their bizarre appearance, native villagers believe the aye-aye is an "omen of death." They are often killed on sight to dispell any 'negative association' with whoever happens to stumble across one :(.
This was the first sketch for this piece.
When the bowl was first attached to the base (this bowl later collapsed because it was too wet).
Never having seen this animal in real life, it was very hard to sculpt the face from only looking at pictures.
In this picture, the faces have just been attached to the (second) bowl.
It took nearly three days to build all of the components for the lemur hands and attach everything together.
The lemur hands waiting to dry. They were dried very slowly to prevent cracking.
One of the lemur hands (already once-fired) in the midst of getting glazed.
You'll notice the pieces in the upper right corner. One of the hands rolled off the table and broke into tiny little pieces.
The lemur hands (and pieces) just seconds away from going through their final firing. The broken pieces were glued back together after the firing.
The lemur bowl after its first firing, in the process of getting glazed. I made the mistake of doing the eyes first. They stared at me accusingly for the rest of the time I worked on the bowl.
You'll notice that at this point the bowl is no longer attached to the base. The piece did a backflip off a chair onto the floor after I accidentally slammed a door too hard one night. Besides the bowl breaking off the base and the base breaking in several places, the rim chipped in three spots and half of the lemur ears broke off. Yeah, this piece gave me a lot of extra trouble...
A lemur face with its unfired glaze.
Seconds after the lid of the kiln was lifted after the final firing. Like the hands, the broken pieces were glazed and fired separate from the piece.
The debut of the freshly-fired lemur chalice! :)
And finally, the gluing of the ears and hands. I was happy to spend the extra time on this piece. Despite all of the problems, it really persevered through the process and is one of my favorite pieces because of that.