Danielle HAwk ‘22
studio art mfa, Towson University

Vessel, 2022
Soda Fired Porcelain
5’4” x 12 x 12

Divisible by Three, 2021
Sandblasted Porcelain
10 X 8 X 8 each

Hawk juxtaposes paired objects, textures, and processes to test our preconceived notion of correctness, forcing us to peer through the veil of social performance. Using the vessel as an extension of self, she challenges the ideas of perfection, projection, and self-doubt.

Artist’s website
Instagram: @Hawk.Nest

Vessel is based on Mesopotamian wine shipping amphoras. The narrow neck kept the liquids exposure to oxygen at a minimum, and the rounded bottom allowed for sediment to settle and collect. It is a visual representation of the dissociation I experience when my anxieties, responsibilities, and intrusive thoughts become too much to contain. I am a vessel split in two held together by a tenuous translucent thread. Vessel’s surface was achieved in a gas fired soda kiln. This process was chosen to achieve a more varied surface. Soda firing is known for its “orange peel” texture and varied flashing. I suffer from chronic adult acne, and my skin is my largest physical source of anxiety. The form, which uses only slabs cast from my personal molds, represent my mind, and the uneven varied soda fired surface, my body; making Vessel a self portrait.  

Divisible by Three has slumped creates the illusion that they are in close conversation with each other. By approaching the work, the viewer is interrupting this private moment with prying eyes.

As the name suggests the work was disassembled using only numbers which are divisible by three. I have a significant preference for odd numbers and specifically ones that are divisible by three. With this work, I allowed that compulsion to govern the number and shape of the disassembly.