Drawing from all the insight I have gained from my time with Natalie, and my own personal experiences that I brought to this partnership, my creative response is the product of my attempts to merge what’s comfortable to me with what’s uncomfortable. During our partnership, I learned just as much from observing as I did from assisting Natalie with a random assortment of tasks.

After reflecting on our readings, I realize now that so much of what has shaped me during this experience is noticing the incredible amount of time Natalie pours into both the material and the immaterial labor that is required for her art. Especially as I helped her with the mundane yet time consuming work that is to be anticipated with such detail oriented, somewhat large scale installations, I discovered that there are truly no short cuts when it comes to art. With that being said, these are all things I have tried to take into account as I worked on my own little sculpture for my creative response.

Personally, I find that Natalie and I have quite different styles when it comes to art making. I know that she enjoys experimenting with different materials, and as such her work is often materially motivated. Furthermore, from what I’ve gathered through observing her artwork and with a slight bit inferring, it seems as though she is quite interested in pursuing what is self sufficient and sustainable. So, as a homage to Natalie’s practice, I decided to approach my creative response from a materially focused perspective in lieu of my usual propensity for focusing on design first.

The process of creating my sculpture consisted mainly of me sitting with the materials I had in front of me, and willing myself to start carving without thinking too much. I chose to carve a candle because I had never worked with wax before, and I wanted to step out of my comfort zone. Combining materials is also something I seldom do, so I had to think about how everything would come together. In all honesty, I really wasn’t quite sure how exactly I wanted my sculpture to look, all I knew was that I wanted to create something that held true to my ideas of sustainability and using mixed materials. Overall, my main take away from lots of talking and working with Natalie is that sometimes you really don’t know how your art will turn out, but you have to trust that it knows what it’s doing.

I made this finished product by carving a candle and using the leftover wax as the filler at the bottom of the jar, then I took one of the gloves I was wearing to add to the jar. This way, these is as little waste as possible, and the end result is something that can be considered an artwork with a practical function, much like most of Natalie’s work. As the candle is lit and it slowly melts away into itself, I think that is when the sculpture will really come to life. The hand serves as a reminder that you are taking something away from the candle the more you use it, and might make you ask yourself how badly you truly need this candle every time you are tempted to light it.

I wasn’t intending on naming this, but the phrase that keeps coming to my mind as I look at my sculpture is

“the hand that keeps on giving”.