Welcome to the temporary website of the Abundant Love Bowl Project!
My name is Erika Reid and I'm in my final year of my Visual Arts degree at Sir Wilfred Grenfell College in Corner Brook, Newfoundland, Canada. For my independent project I wanted to do something I felt was meaningful.
Recently, I traveled South East Asia where I was deeply inspired by the children. The children in these countries possessed all the excitement and gratefulness that I had been feeling was lost from my own life. Time spent with the children fascinated me; they were so appreciative of the simplest items. Abundant love Children's Home in thailand has become the focus of my latest work.
Until this term, I had been primarily focused on very process-based work. Recently, I have been feeling a need to shift from this type of work towards works that I feel strongly about and serve a greater purpose. As my research progressed, I have come to the realization that these two areas are not mutually exclusive. Art and social practice strategies have become of great interest to me.
For as long as I can remember, I have been interested in forming objects. My work deals with the relationship I have discerned between the form of the bowl and nourishment. I am taking this form and manipulating it using various recycled materials. Rather than adding more "stuff" to the world, I want to take pre-existing items and create beautiful pieces. Glass, aluminum, clay, silver, and a range of collected items have become my sculpting materials. The bowls will be sold and the funds returned to the children's home, thus intensifying the connection between the form of the bowl and nourishment.
In total, I plan on personally making 102 bowls; one for each child at the home. However, the project has become much larger since it's conception. I will be holding art events where the general public will have an opportunity to create bowls from recycled materials and learn about social practice art making.
This website will be updated frequently as a document of the bowls completed and to inform people of when bowl making events will be occurring. Thank you for your interest and I encourage you to get involved with the project. If you have any questions feel free to contact me.
