Burn: A Junior Conceptual Project by Eleanor Thomas (2014)

The concept for my project is the feeling of ''resentment when cooking.'' Resentment is something that I am not familiar with, so this project was a chance to experiment and explore new ideas. Resentment is a feeling of anger and frustration that builds up overtime. It can be felt towards someone else or yourself, and is a dark type of regret. This makes me think of hot coals, because they burn at a constant temperature for a long time and hold in a lot of heat. The red, orange, and gold colors that glow through remind me of memories that people try to suppress. I decided to place the coals in a pan to cook over a stove, to show that the resentment itself is cooking, instead resentment while cooking. I thought a lot about the classic 50's repressed housewife, so the background is based off of a mid-centruy kitchen wallpaper pattern.

To make the wallpaper background, I used pastels in order to get bright clear colors and a little bit of texture. Pastels were something I had never used before, but I was really happy with the outcome because the pattern was clear, but not perfect. Then I scanned the wallpaper so that I could print it out to be smooth and clean. I photographed the coals burning in a pan, and printed that out separately from the wallpaper. This way, I was able to place the pan on top of the wallpaper so that it would stick out from the wall, rather than blend into the setting.