Brain Bank. Cardboard, Clay, Foam, Acrylic. 2023.
Simply put, the Brain Bank is a piggy bank for your thoughts. Though designed to look like a brain, its hollow body and open top allows one to drop in any quick thoughts they may have (written on a post it note for example). The Brain Bank was designed with the mentally ill peoples in mind. From personal experience, I have an overwhelming amount of thoughts. It is hard to keep up with the thousands of thoughts we have any given day, no matter what it be related to, and sometimes it's better, and probably more practical, to come back to some of those thoughts at a later time. When one is ready for it, they can lift the Brain Bank and find an opening on its underside where they can retrieve their notes. It is a design that promotes dealing with your emotions and thoughts in a healthy way (not always immediately but at least eventually) all while having the fun nostalgic feeling of using a piggy bank and a silly sculptural piece to look at in the meantime. (Continued below...)
Below is a process image. To form the Brain Bank, I built a hollow dome shape out of cardboard, leaving a hole at the top and bottom for notes to come and go. I then coated the interior with plaster to reinforce the dome structurally. I then hand sculpted the brain with air dry clay and then the eyeballs separately on top of foam balls. Once they were all dried out, I drilled a hole in both the brains flat front and the eyeballs backs. I skewered two nails in the eyeballs to create the floating eyeball effect and then glued the nails inside the holes I made on the brains front. The last step was to paint the whole peice and clear coat it for longevity. The BrainBank was then finished. I hope to eventually refine this design on a 3D software and potentially promote and sell as a real product.
