Advisor: Toby Buonagurio

Title: Be Our Guest?, Date: May 2023, Dimensions: 14 x 14 x 18 inches, Medium: Unique, handmade, glazed and acrylic painted ceramic

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been drawn towards the sweeter things in life. Light-hearted and childlike aesthetics have consistently attracted me for years, bringing me a sense of warmth and comforting nostalgia. As a young girl, my mother would visit her home country of the Philippines as often as she possibly could to visit family. While there, she would usually travel throughout Asia, and if she happened to stop in Japan, she would without fail bring home some form of Sanrio memorabilia for me. This birthed my love for adorable characters such as Hello Kitty and Rilakkuma, which later developed into a desire to create a recognizable character of my own. Alongside my admiration for said characters, I have also consistently had a love for confections. I have had a sweet tooth since I was a little girl and my parents knew just that. Whether it was my father bringing home sweet treats while on his way back from work, or my mother bringing my sister and I on bakery runs with her, I have appreciated sweets for just about my entire life. My appreciation for the taste of desserts later blossomed into an admiration for the art surrounding pastry design and baking itself. While I am no professional baker, I take pride in creating desserts, decorating them, and seeing the reaction of those who I serve them to.

For my Senior Honor’s Project, I desperately wanted to create a work of art that I would be proud of and would resemble something that I would be drawn to if I viewed it in any store or art setting. Several ideas floated through my mind of what to make yet none of them stuck, that is until I put my two passions together: precious aesthetics and sweets. I wanted to take the beauty of confections and morph them into something that can be kept forever without the fear of perishment. Alongside this idea, I also wanted to add a fun and almost humorous nature to my project. These ideas are what led me down the path of creating my very specific project.

Title: Cutie Confections, Date: May 2023, Dimensions : range from 1 x .5 x 1 inches to 7 x 7 x 10 inches, Medium: Unique, handmade, glazed and acrylic painted ceramic

It took me over two weeks into the Spring 2023 semester to finally piece together my idea for this project. The last thing that I wanted was to decide on an idea too prematurely and to then regret whatever I decided to create halfway into the construction of it. When my perfect idea finally did hit me, I knew immediately that it was the direction that I wanted to go in: a three-tiered pastry display, like those often seen at tea parties, covered with miniature handmade ceramic pastries. To top it off, a pair of originally designed, fully-handmade bears sat on the top tier having a tea party of their own. It seemed to be the perfect combination of my two obsessions despite not having a full plan as to how to construct the display itself.

Starting this project was intimidating to say the least, but I did it in the way that made the most sense to me: to study different pastries and confections. I bought croissants, cupcakes, and tarts, all with the task of studying their size, texture, colors, and the overall presense of each. With the treat in front of me, I would sculpt my clay to resemble each tiny detail. I used countless tools to add clay, remove clay, carve, detail, and smooth each inch of the “pastries” seen on my display. One of the most fun parts of creating this project was using real baking tools to make them look as “realistic” as possible. This was extremely successful considering clay acts very similarly to fondant. I also used slip, a very wet and smooth variant of ceramic clay that is usually used as a glue to attach two or more pieces of clay together, as a form of “frosting.” I did so by putting it in piping bags and teaching myself to decorate my confections in a style very similar to real cakes and pastries. This was probably my favorite part of this project as well as the trickiest, solely because I had less control of the slip compared to traditional clay that is used very hands-on and can be controlled completely by the artist. Using several piping tips, I was able to achieve multiple frosting designs that enhanced the effect of it being a “real” dessert.

Giving the audience the illusion that they could reach out, grab one of the pastries on display, and actually bite into one of them was a big goal of mine while creating this project. I have had an admiration for realism for as long as I have been creating art and it has been a goal of mine to achieve a sense of realism in the eyes of my viewers. I had only ever attempted this style in my paintings before creating this honor’s project, but this seemed to be the perfect moment to push myself to get that effect. I used several tools to achieve my desired outcome, most notably, I used a dry sponge in order to mimic the texture of cake. I used this technique for several of the pastries on my display as well as one of the two cakes sat next to said display. It took me a few tries to get the exact effect that I was trying for, but once I got the hang of it, it was my tried and true technique throughout my “pastry-making” experience. This technique proved to be extremely successful for the post-bisque step of my process as well, because it produced great results when acrylic paint was applied on top of it. For this procedure, I first painted each pastry that I used this technique for with one solid color, making sure to not have any spots left naked. I followed this by using a lighter “cake-colored” paint on a dry brush to go over the parts that I’d already painted, giving the piece more dimension. I used this technique on my peach cake, lemon blueberry cake, strawberry “Happy Birthday” cake, strawberry shortcake, and rainbow cookies. 

Title: Tasty Cakes, Date: April 2023, Dimensions: range from 1 x .5 x 1 inches to 8 x 8 x 3.5 inches, Medium: Unique, handmade, glazed and acrylic painted ceramic

I was highly inspired by trompe l’oeil art while creating this project and was driven by my desire to “trick” my audience in a sense. Trompe l’oeil is typically a form of two-dimensional art which is meant to give the viewer the sense that they are not necessarily viewing a piece of art at first glance. Instead, it is meant to trick the minds of those viewing it into thinking that whatever is on the canvas is actually popping out in front of them. While my project is completely three-dimensional, I craved to give my audience a sense that what they were viewing was more than just art and could potentially be an actual dessert in front of their eyes. My experience with painting in acrylic helped me immensely in this process because it allowed me to create dimension in my “pastries” through shading and the use of different gradients. 

The star of my project, in my opinion, is the tea party on top. I lovingly and meticulously sculpted each element on top of my display, all except for the tablecloth which was solely a piece of clay which I rolled out very thinly and draped over a handmade “table.” I molded the “tablecloth” on top of the “table” in order for it to mimic true drapery, which I found to be very believable after several tests. Aside from this element, every other component was handcrafted. The most difficult pieces, of course, were the bears. The bears alone took over ten hours to carve altogether, and their chairs took almost the same amount of time. Each quilt on the chairs were carved with a pin tool, leaving very little room for mistakes. My pin tool was also my primary tool while carving my bears, using the side of said tool to smooth out any roughness on the surface of my characters. This was a difficult process but I was highly inspired by Chinese jade carving and the painstaking crafting that goes into those pieces. Carving jade, although I have never done so, is a very unforgiving practice considering once the jade is removed, it is not reattached. My process was reminiscent of Chinese jade carving considering making such miniscule details in clay can also be extremely difficult and unforgiving when taking into account how quickly they dry. Once clay gets too dry, it becomes very delicate and brittle, which led to one of my chairs unfortunately breaking. Because of this, I had to entirely remake it since there was no way for me to repair it in its dry state. The strawberry shortcake, cupcakes, teapot, plates, and spoons were all individually carved and later “glaze-glued” onto the table in order to fuse all the elements together onto the display. In terms of glazing, I chose very childlike, fun, and vibrant pastels to tie my piece together. I find these colors to be very inviting which is exactly how I want my art to be perceived. 

Title: Teddy Bear Tea Party, Date: April 2023, Dimension: 7 x 7 x 10 inches, Medium: Unique, handmade, glazed and acrylic painted ceramic

I wanted this project to be a quick glimpse into my mind and I think it does just that. My heart was poured into each and every carving on this display and I hope those that view it get a sense of my passion for fun, carefree, limitless, and cute art. I have a deep admiration for art depicting pain, world issues, and darkness, however I do not believe any of that is necessary to make a piece of art great. I hope that my art gives its viewers a sense of comfort and puts them in a lighthearted state of mind.

Title: Be Our Guest?, Date: May 2023, Dimensions: 14 x 14 x 18 inches, Medium: Unique, handmade, glazed and acrylic painted ceramic

Title: Be Our Guest?, Date: May 2023, Dimensions: 14 x 14 x 18 inches, Medium: Unique, handmade, glazed and acrylic painted ceramic

Title: Best Our Guest?, Date: May 2023, Dimensions: 14 x 14 x 18 inches, Medium: Unique, handmade, glazed and acrylic painted ceramic