This installation piece expresses the yearning of my spirit. My work is inspired by spirit houses, which are animistic wooden shrines built around sacred trees in Myanmar to shelter the local guardian spirits (nat). Inspired by the poetic imagery of the spirit houses, I seek out to narrate my psychological yearning for protective spaces. 

 

This yearning desire is expressed through the poetic image of the spirit and the ceramic firing technique. I use clay to materialize the longing spirit. The clay forms are built with parts casted from my hand and foot as symbolic inclusion of myself. Through the sagger firing technique, I attempt to intimately unite the material that the house would be built of— wood, by having the handbuilt clay sculptures buried among softwood within an enclosed ceramic container (also known as a sagger) inside the kiln during the firing. 

 

The result of this inward reach are sculptural forms harden by fire, that breathes the ashen breath of loss.