Visual Piece and Artist Statement

For this essay I decided to make deformed arms that I would attach to myself.  Throughout this whole project I would have thoughts about how it would feel if I really did have a deformity in real life like the kids that were affected by Chernobyl had.  In my essay I wrote that the one place that I would feel at home and accepted if I did have a deformity would be an ashram in Crestone, Colorado. At this ashram they have a statue of a goddess named “The divine Mother” who had four arms also.  Although I did not get to go to my final exhibition I would have dressed up in a traditional Hindu costume and attached the arms to my body so I could be a Hindu goddess too.  This would have expressed that even though I may have had a deformity, I could be considered someone very special for the difference that I may have in a different culture. 

For my piece I had to use plastic wrap to make my arms. I rolled the plastic wrap around my own arms and taped it together.  Then I had to cut the plastic wrap arms off of my own arms. I then used paper Mache to cover over the plastic so that I could paint the arms. I had to be very careful as to not make break the arms that I made and I had to put them in a certain place so that they could dry without getting messed up.  In the end I didn’t have the perfect arms that I wanted, but the arms that I did make came out looking like real deformed arms so I took that as a positive aspect for my project.

The one thing that inspired me to make a visual piece out of myself for this project was the divine mother at the ashram.  Even though she may be a statue I hold her in a high respect.  The divine Mother does have four arms but the people at the ashram wake up at 4:30 each morning just to dress her up and make her look really divine for the people that come and see her and tell her their problems.  Seeing this my heart swells because when people look at her they don’t think about the fact that she may have something different about her.  They look at her as a person that can take care of them. Her deformity makes her strong and powerful.  For my visual piece I wanted to look just like her, and let people learn about a divine figure in a different culture.