Be Free
Eli G.
-
To the casual observer, I live a privileged life, yet I hide internal struggles from the world. Since my early years of drawing and painting, art has been a form of self-therapy for my ADHD and depression. With time, my interests expanded to three dimensional artwork. These days, throwing pottery shields me from the more painful aspects of reality, suppressing distractions and dark thoughts. As I create strong vessels from soft, malleable clay, the newly formed hollows become my secret spaces to hide in, hidden lairs which keep me safe from the world, protected by drying porcelain.
With ADHD-fueled intense focus, I enter a state of flow when making art, and time passes unnoticed. As artists and athletes know, in those moments, you are at peace, one with the universe. This experience, the “high” of creativity, rewards the immense time, effort, and repeated frustrations it entails.
I find joy in giving my work to friends or family. Unlike a purchased gift, my artwork represents a piece of myself, something I love to share with the people I care about. That is not to say that I have no entrepreneurial leanings; I created my own business called “Candles By E.” Through this company, I sell candles in hand-thrown ceramic jars, gently bulbous forms finished with a blue-green, homemade glaze. The color speaks to my love for the ocean and water. Added scented wax transports the viewer / user to the beach. Mine is a labor of love, with my price-point just high enough to cover the materials and time invested in each candle.
Moving beyond my production-perfect mugs and candles, I am now exploring a mixed-media, graffiti-inspired approach to pottery. Graffiti expresses thoughts and emotions through text, symbols, colors, and secret ciphers. It is the language of the street. I use it to intimately personalize my work. This style comes as a significant break from my previous work and the classical tradition of ceramics.
I make these pieces deliberately rough, irregular, and imperfect, in stark contrast to my older work. Rather than use traditional colored glaze on these pieces, I use an ultra-modern tool: acrylic paint pens. These offer the vibrant colors graffiti is known for, and allow total control over the text and symbols, unlike ceramic glaze. Through my surface decoration, text, color, and size highlight important and relevant aspects of my life. Larger pieces communicate a multitude of thoughts and smaller pieces expand upon single words or phrases. Although my code remains confidential, each word has a specific meaning in my world. For example, the piece “My Lyfe” contains the word “gym” which refers to its importance, not only for lifting weights, but because it is a therapy to me, a place where I can work on myself. Art also cultivates my soul.
In the future, I will continue this body of work, investigating my personal language and code and using them to express my thoughts, issues, and ideas.
-
Since my early years of drawing and painting, art has been a form of self-therapy for my ADHD and depression. With time, my interests expanded to three dimensional artwork. These days, throwing pottery shields me from the more painful aspects of reality, suppressing distractions and dark thoughts.
