Beth Cavener Stitcher

I came across Beth Cavener Stitcher's work when I was carrying out research on clay sculpture for my Foundation Diploma. Her sculptures focus on human phycology stripped of context and represented through animal forms.

Her work process often consists of sculpting clay over metal armatures with over 2000 pounds clay at once. Once this is done, the sculptures aren then cut into 30-160 pieces and the clay is taken out of the middle, taking it down to 1/4 of the thickness. If the sculpture is too large to be fired at once as a whole, it wouldn't be attached back together until after firing, with glue and epoxies. 

I find this work really satisfying to look at because of the smoothness of the clay and the way in which Stitcher has emphasised some of the bodily features of the animals. She has captured the facial features and projected certain emotions across brilliantly through doing this. Cavener has taken some quite sensitive subject matters and adapted them so they can be addressed up front. I find this relatable because a lot of my drawings and sculptures that I have created in the past , have been inspired be a range of quite emotional and psychological topics.