Jonga Fan
Natural Pendant
Class of: 2023
Major: Communication Design BFA
Medium: Soft sculpture/ pendant
Faculty: Eileen Pappas
Prompt: The natural world is an endless source of inspiration. For this assignment, you will visit the American Museum of Natural History (200 Central Park West) to find the subject of your next 3D creation. Your project could also serve a purpose in addition to being decorative (becoming a wearable accessory such as a hat, a home object such as a pillow, a container of some sort like a planter or magazine rack, etc.).
For inspiration, I went to the Natural History Museum and found that the human history part really intrigues me, The history of different races and different regions is divided into different pavilions for display. There are some things like small pendants in many different cultural venues. Different cultures may use different materials to embodied various meanings. But if we view them as works of art, they all hang down from above like small wind chimes to form a decorative object. So I decide to make a totem( or a pendant) incorporate my own aesthetic and my understanding of nature. The way I made my finished small ornaments is to weave a loom, then use fishing rope and yarn as an auxiliary to roll the loom that I weave out into a solid cylinder. In my weaving process, because I wanted to echo the theme of the project, I added (fake) bird feathers that represent nature. When I was trying to finish my object, I found that the feathers were not stable, so I replaced them with rope, and then put the feathers on it as an icing on the cake.
