When I heard the themes for 2019, I was immediately drawn to Amphibian, but I knew that I didn't want to create something literal. Instead, I decided to create a contortion of reality, something abstract. Half baked designs had been scattered carelessly across my sketchbook for days, but my self-imposed time crunch triggered the final result. Perfection had been my artistic crutch for years, but now was the time to let go and embrace the mess. Since art isn’t made in a vacuum, I made the giant peacock-esque display out of used plastic bags.

 

 I laid out the plastic bags in a large circle, tweaking the placement before hot gluing them. Then, garden rods were cut to size and attached for support. After painting the piece and gluing dried moss around the edges, I tied a back brace to the center. The piece still felt unfinished so I hot glued glass beads on my face as 'water drops.' Thankfully, I only got one blister.