Reflection

I created this sculpture about resilience because I wanted to express how pollution has affected me and the world around us. I began to see more and more waste piling up all over spots that used to flourish with nature. Now, when I look at nature, it’s not the same healthy natural environment it was before, it’s a fragmented reflection of what it used to be. For the Ocean Awareness contest, I chose to make a sculpture because I am taking ceramics class at school right now and I feel it's a very visual and fun way to show and express my creativity, which makes me joyful. I was inspired by the hand positions of the hand arches seen in paintings of the sistine chapel, so I crafted my own variation. I sculpted an uplifting hand out of terracotta clay to symbolize a will to restore nature. The small sprout represents a fragile but strong willed resilience, and I decorated the background with debris of trash I found in nature to show what pollution truly looks like. I also added a large piece of driftwood along with dried plants to express a dead and withered tree to dramatically contrast the polluted Earth to a living sprout. This sculpture means a lot to me. It’s not just about my own feelings, but I yearned to make a statement for this contest. It’s depressing to see that mankind has done this to our own home, but it is also hopeful to feel the strong resilience of Earth. Even though the malnourished soil and the pollution chokes out the body, the hand and the little sprout represent a chance. When all ideas have been drowned out, there can and will only be a remainder for hope, and a symbol of resilience.