Imagine you are walking deep into the woods and you come across a clearing. In the clearing,  sunlight beams break through the branches above and settle on a creature. The creature is  sleeping so peacefully, radiating a feeling of comfort and warmth. The creature seems to have  been there for so long that the grass is growing around it. You feel a deep calm. 

This creature is The Steward.  

The Steward is a fantastical nature spirit with the sole purpose of caring- in fact, he is as if caring  were personified. The Steward is (speculatively) one of many. The viewer is invited to step into this  fantastical world where stewards are a species, and each forest, lake or area has it’s own steward to  look after it. I wished to play with the idea of nature spirits, which are common in many cultures  around the world, and create my own. These stewards would not own any land, but would take full  responsibility and care for their area.  

The intended outcome for the audience would be for them to consider their relationship with  nature, and how they would treat that same nature if they knew there was an altruistic, caring  creature that felt the ramifications of their actions. Would they cut trees and litter if they knew they  would cause despair to a creature that is intended for only good?  

In the preliminary design process, I was very visually inspired by My Neighbor Totoro, specifically  the character Totoro by Hayao Miyazaki. I was aiming to create a character that felt both  comfortable and fantastical. While watching the film, it is impossible to not feel as though this  creature would make you feel nothing but safe if you were in his presence. The character design of  Totoro is familiar- his features are a mixture of cats, owls and rabbits, however he is still a magical  being. I played with designs that would be both whimsical and peaceful. I settled with a catlike face  and ears as his main characteristics, however he was also mystical with moth wings and two sets of  ears. He is ultimately his own species, but was created as a humanoid cat fairy hybrid.  

The creation process began with a base of expanding foam on MDF that was carved down into the  intended shape of The Steward, and then covered in two layers of plaster. This process was  surprisingly fast and simple, with the foam being very easy to cut and shape. The shape of this  design was very inspired by Yoshitomo Nara’s work. In his sculpture Fountain of Life, the  characters have very simple faces however they effectively communicate expression. I aimed to  emulate this by making the calmness of The Steward obvious without overloading on detail. Before  The Steward was painted, his proportions looked very similar to Nara’s work.  

The abundance of colour and seemingly random designs are often a staple of my artwork, however  I had never considered transferring my style onto sculpture before I had seen Yoona Love Kim’s  work, specifically Bunny’s Rest Bonfire. This sculpture of covered in paintings and drawings in her  usual style, but all over the piece. I decided that I wanted to mirror this with my own style of art 

and use The Steward as a canvas. Covering him in drawings definitely impacted the reading of the  work. It consolidated that he was not supposed to be a part of the normal ecosystem, but something  whimsical, spiritual and fantastical.  

The wings and the grass were the most time consuming parts of the sculpture. The wings began as  a wire frame with cellophane that I wished to melt to look like fairy wings. This did not work as the  cellophane would not melt properly and the wire was not delicate enough, even after changing the  gauge. The switch to glass meant that I had to actually learn to cut glass. Many panes were broken  in the process of figuring out which order to cut each line and how to ensure that the wings would  

still be strong. The grass was tedious, as I painted, cut and places each individual blade. Although it  was time consuming, it was important that I made him a part of nature, and the bed of grass was  instrumental in this.  

The Steward is care, love and hope amalgamated in a creature. This artwork aims to invoke  introspection about our own relationships with nature and the world around us.  

Bibliography  

Kim, Yoona Love. n.d. "Bunny’s Rest Bonfire." Mutual Art. https://www.mutualart.com/Artwork/ Bunny-s-Rest-Bonfire/8E92C8F9D0A3C6452F09CEA5138B63F0  

Miyazaki, Hayao. 1988. “My Neighbor Totoro.” Directed by Hayao Miyazaki. United States: 50th  Street Films.  

Nara, Yoshitomo. n.d. "Fountain of Life." Yoshitomo Nara. https://www.yoshitomonara.org/en/ catalogue/YNF5932/