In 444 Crayons, I aimed to exhibit the process of the life of a crayon itself, the progression of a crayon from organized into chaotic, from sytematized to uncontrolled. As the tower of crayons descends, it becomes increasingly on the brink of collapse, more and more crayons missing randomly from each layer, some of the crayons starting to melt or break off to the point where they hardly resemble layers and appear more to be just a jumbled mess over. At the base of the tower, the crayons seem to explode over the canvas, more of the crayons are broken and melted, and the canvas is covered in scribbles as well as splattered drops of melted crayons.

One of the factors that led me to choose the crayon was that I recently had an assingment in my Photography class entitled 'Childhood Memories.' And in reminiscing of the days of my youth, I took great pleasure in remembering the drawings my older brother and I used to make with all of our crayons. My brother was always one to 'stay within the lines,' but I had always greatly disliked being restricted by boundaries, and I loved to let the crayons take themselves accross the piece of paper, where my imagination would lead the crayon, and my hand would just serve as the means through which the crayon could leave its mark on the paper. Crayons to me have always been a messy and wild medium and so I believe that my sculpture shows the true essence of a crayon. Each crayon starts out utterly perfect and flawless, no dents or signs of use, simply a perfectly rounded stick of colored wax. But once you start using a crayon, its form changes, its shape changes. You have to peel back the paper Crayola wrapper so that you can continue to use it. Sometimes you sharpen it. You take it out of the box from one place, and you put it back in another. A crayon's life starts out organized and ends in a gnarled form that sometimes becomes unrecognizable as a crayon. My sculpture takes the viewer through this process of a crayon's degrading life, but at the same time glorifies it because it allows the crayon to leave its mark on a canvas as opposed to paper, which is what crayons are traditionally used to draw on. Canvases are most often painted on, and painting is a medium that recieves a bit more respect than a crayon does when it comes to the making of art.

I think that my sculpture succeeds in what I was trying make it exhibit. But there is defnitely room for improvements and alterations. I would have loved to make this sculpture at a much larger scale than I was able to, but unfortunately I was limited by both time and money - I had already spent just about $50 on the crayons that are in the sculpture, and I don't think my parents would be too understanding if I spent much more money on even more crayons. I think that the greater size would make the presence of the crayon as the subject of the sculpture even more noticeable and apparent. And it would show that even something as small and insignificant as a crayon can create something great.