This was another sculpture I made for my AP Art class. Our assignment was to create a piece inspired by one of our favorite artists. I chose Salvador Dali because I find his abnormal themes, quirky tendencies, and creative meanings relatable and inspiring. His groundbreaking work really impacted the surrealist movement, and I wanted my project to incorporate surrealism in a three-dimensional form.

In particular, Dali’s “The Persistence of Memory” captured my imagination. I decided I wanted to transform the idea of melting objects to represent an illusion of the mind. To me, the concept of “melting” has a different connotation than it did for Dali. I think of something that literally slips through a person’s grasp. In other words, I see “melting” as a loss of control.

Chess is a game that is entirely about controlling the outcome, but it doesn’t always turn out as each player envisions. So, I figured that the queen, arguably one of the most important players, would be a strong symbol for a loss of control if it melted and malfunctioned. Many people like to be in control of their futures. When they feel that they are losing control, they tend to react in negative ways. The “Melting Queen” is a representation of that fear.

I spent a lot of time on my concept sketches for this piece. I wanted the sculpture to look like it was literally melting off of the side of a table, so I had to spend some time thinking through the logistics of how to accomplish that task in three-dimensional form. To make this sculpture, I used air-dry clay, which I find is a relatively easy medium to mold. I started by creating a slab and cutting out the cylindrical shapes for the base. Using a pinch pot method, I built the hollow form, which I attached to the base. To make the finer details at the top of the queen, I used a combination of pinch pot and traditional sculpting methods.