I believe in my chicken statue. On a lovely day in the middle of my seventh grade school year, I was sitting in an art class in which we were being told to create clay coil pots. Being the rebellious, outgoing, self expressing child that I was, I asked my teacher, mrs.Lesage, if I could make a statue instead of a coil pot, because I had no interest in making a boring pot that I would probably never use. I wanted to challenge myself and create something unique. So, after my teacher had given the okay, I went to work on my project. And I had something perfect in mind. I had decided to make a chicken. The statue needed to be hollow so that it did not explode in the oven, so I began by making two concave half spheres that would be put together to form the body of the chicken. Then, since I was feeling a little guilty for not making a coil pot I decided to incorporate the use of coils in the design of my chicken. So I coiled one long strip of clay into a spiral shape and then repeated the process a second time. I set these aside to attach latter; these would be the wings. I then crafted two triangle shapes, put them together and smushed them onto the face of the sphere to form the beak. I added a tail by simply smashing on a sort of cone shape at the back. Next I added great big eyes that bulged out of the sides of the chicken's head. Lastly I added the most important part of the chicken, its comb. I finished it up by painting it with glaze and lovingly putting it in the oven. I eventually ended up with the product seen here today. The result being an adorable chicken with all kinds of features clearly too big for its spherical body and enormous eyes that just stare into your soul until you crack a smile and laugh at its ridiculousness and adorableness.

I believe that everyone should have a “chicken statue”, or an object that that perfectly represents them and expresses their feelings thoughts and values. Something that expresses who they are as a person and demonstrates fearlessness in doing so. Something that shows the world what they believe. Everyone needs a way to express themselves be it through art, music or writing. And of course there are countless other ways, but everyone needs something.

I believe in my “chicken statue” and more importantly, in the power of self expression. I feel that self expression is an essential part of every human being and that without it we would all be trapped in a boring nearly meaningless world, where we are all the same. Where we all think the same. Where we all feel the same. Where nothing is interesting and nothing carries any meaning. I believe in a world of creativity,of individuality, of opinions,of beliefs, of values, of people being people, of people being themselves. But none of that can happen without “chicken statues.”