I am currently a senior at North Monterey County High School. As a kid I loved art. I would spend my days making small little crafts and trying to create realistic pieces. The older I got the less that became part of my life. However, in my junior year of high school I enrolled in Ceramics 1. I absolutely loved it. The ability to create a 3D piece and have creative liberty has honestly been life changing. Ceramics gives me a sense of freedom allowing me to bring the ideas in my head into a tangible piece with almost no limitations. Thankfully this year -my senior year- I was able to get into Ceramics II further developing my art. My work mostly revolves around the natural world. For as long as I can remember I have had a love and obsession with animals. I have spent my whole life researching and learning all about nature and every species of animal I can find. My dream is to one day become a herpetologist (someone who studies reptiles). The more I learn the more I realize the critical condition the earth is in.

We humans as a species have had a detrimental impact on the earth. Currently over 1 million species of plants and animals are threatened, vulnerable or endangered. That is not counting the hundreds of species that we have already sent to their early grave. Due to things like climate change, pollution, habitat loss, poaching, and other factors, the planet's biodiversity is at risk. There is not enough being done about it. There are a few conservation programs and laws in place but that isn't enough.  

In my piece “Annihilation” I wanted to create a tragic scene, depicting a family of the now extinct California Grizzly Bear (Ursus arctos californicus) enjoying their day. This is the cubs’ first time coming out of their den and seeing the world. Their mom, loving and caring as she is, sees that the California blackberry bush by her den is fruiting and wants to give her cubs a taste of one of the best things life has to offer. However, in the shadows behind a tree there is a poacher looking to acquire 3 trophies for the price of one. The bears, trees, rocks, and poacher are sculpted out of clay and colored using a mixture of glazes and acrylic paint. I was important to me to include real foliage so the leaves on the trees are actual California Coastal Redwoods, and the blackberry bush I made using blackberry bramble and added beads of hot glue to create the blackberries themselves and paper for the leaves. The ferns I made from acrylic paint, gypsum powder, glue and wire. The dirt, lichens, mosses, and sticks I gathered from nature in hopes to create a realistic scene that could have taken place here in Monterey County.

The California Grizzly Bear was hunted to extinction. The last one shot and killed was in Tulare County in 1922 and the last reported sighting was in Sequoia National Park in 1924. The supposed reason for this genocide was because farmers were angry that the bears were eating their livestock leading to the persecution and complete extinction of the grizzlies. In 1953 the California Grizzly Bear was made the official state animal of California which is little consolation for the bears. Although this piece focuses on the grizzly, I want the message to be about all the animals we have sent to their extinction and especially the ones that are at risk. It might be too late for the California grizzly but there's still hope for the other one million species of plants and animals that are threatened with extinction.

We all need to do everything in our power to save them. They are a part of earth’s species just like we are.