Finished Piggy!

Here is the piggy bank I had previously posted showing the earlier stages. The assignment was to create a clay sculpture based on or inspired by any myth. I decided to do something inspired by the modern day "Beauty Myth." This is also functional art as a real piggy bank with large coin slot and removable large cork. It weighs 19 lbs., 7.5 oz. and measures at about 17" long, 11 1/2" high, and 11 1/2" wide.

Artist's Statement:

Based on the "Beauty Myth", this hand made sculpture is a large, cute, smooth, traditional, and feminine looking piggy bank made out of clay. However, the twist is that it has a child's style of writing all over it with a marker. The words are names of body parts that are altered by plastic surgery (i.e. tummy, thighs - intentionally mispelled, nose, etc.) and some words that reflect how the girl (who "owns the piggy") feels about her body and her influences (i.e. yuck, gross, model, star, skinny, pretty). I also adhered a barcode sticker close to the cork on the bottom and a "Made in China" sticker on the left lower butt. All of this has several meanings...

1. a little girl having a piggy bank conveys innocence, nostalgia, tradition, and sweetness. However all that is grossly altered by her obsession to change how she looks, that she is saving up her coins in this blown-up large piggy bank.

2. the irony that the bank is a pig/"piggy", which many chubby girls are called if not thin, as today's standards conveyed in the media. And the pig is symbolic of the girl with writing over it in a marker of body parts to be altered, such as a plastic surgeon would do on a patient's body. Also, how many patients end up looking very much alike. (i.e. the barcode sticker)

3. The overwhelming obsession and addiction of plastic surgery, materialism, and the exterior...especially shown all over the media and celebrity world. Also sending so many people into debt.

4. The inflated large piggy bank is also symbolic of what a large business plastic surgery is; how much it costs; how much profit the medical professionals make; and how it is factory-like - as piggy banks are made. (i.e. the "Made in China" sticker)

I'm not certain on the title for sure, but in my mind have been calling her "Piggy."

Let me know if you have any comments about this...

I'll first show the process of making her since you last saw her as my finished clay sculpture.

After the kiln firing (which shrinks it and makes it a light salmon color):
Minor repairs and touch ups of cracks:
After painting a metallic black glaze base coat:
Drying in between the many coats of pink paint I mixed:
After pink and black paint:
Spray coating with lacquer for high gloss appearance:


Done!:






"Made in China" sticker:




Barcode sticker: