In the beginning of my ceramic studies, I wanted to create some work based on Bosch’s triptych painting The Garden of Earthly Delights. I have always had a fascination with the number three and the idea of beginning, middle, and end. Bosch explores the ideas of beginning, middle, and end in this painting, and I examine these ideas in my own secular way here.

The first was a work based off of the towering pink organic structures in the painting. Mirroring the idea of a triptych, I decided to make something that had three sections to it. The base is stable and round with three organic leaf-like protrusions. The bottom of the second piece fits securely into the opening of the top of the base, containing a flower in the middle with three pedals expanding outward. The last piece of this ceramic puzzle has a long pointed end that inserts down into the second piece and has three leaf-like pedals at the top.

The second work was based off of the humanoid being in the right panel of the painting, considered to be Hell. Again sectioned in three, I made a body, head, and hat. Using slip I imagined organic lines of veins throughout all three pieces to create movement and balance between the three pieces. Each piece of this work is a double walled vessel in which I explored a new method of making.