It was a great experience working with Jennifer Ewing and learning about her process of making the spirit boats. You could make them with just about anything, but Jennifer uses mostly bottles because of their shape and their original purpose, which was to hold liquids. There was a lot of symbolism with the materials, the shape of a boat, and the process/ journey of how it was made.
What was really fun was finding an art piece in the museum that "spoke" to us. I knew exactly which piece I wanted to observe more closely, which was the porcelain cups, plates, bowls, and teapots piece in the korean exhibit. I loved it at first glance, but i never really looked at it. The reason I loved it was because it represented my life so much and just life in general. My perception of it was that life is never a forward and straight path. At the bottom are the broken pieces, representing your past regrets and bad memories. Then, going up the piece, you see the porcelain stacked upon one another and it's leaning, representing the curves in life. Lastly, looking at the piece all together, it is still standing, representing the present and the person you are now after all that has happened in your life so far. That's how I saw the piece.
After that, we made our boats! This time, Jennifer suggested wrapping the boats in paper to hide the look of the underlying materials. I thought that it actually looked nicer and more natural. She also told me to think about the kind of shadows the boat would cast when tying the strings.
I felt that this project was more spiritual than the bangka vessels, but I loved them both. Here's my boat, the Weaver.
