Meg Ida is a ceramacist and painter. In 1979 she received a Diploma in Nursing from Vancouver Community College, Langara and in 1993 a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, and she studied ceramics at Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in 1996-1997.
Scope and content
The work consists of twenty-four raw, unfired clay figures, each 10 cm high, in red art terra, porcelain, black raku, and yellow high fire clays, each figure plaster press mold cast from Venus de Milo salt and pepper shakers by Meg Ida, placed in two stacked egg cartons with red flocking, inside a document box the interior of which has been lined and padded with red cotton velvet.
Notes
The artist noted that "The clay bodies used were: red terra cotta (Navajo wheel, cone 04, Imco), white (B-Mix, cone 9, laguna), yellow (H-490, cone 9, Plainsman), and black (9 Raku clay, Plainsman).
The artist also stated that "This installation originally filled a refrigerator with small Venus de Milo figures to underline notions about eggs fertility + food, sexuality, flavors and racial differences. Venus is the other best known female figure in Western Art History. However, souvenir size copies stir a kitschy response. Putting these uniform figures in flocked egg cartons and into standard household appliances along with other food items generates a paradoxical effect. The commonplace setting shades the value, but the multiplicity and apparent uniformity insists on attention. The play on 'food- NOT food' is assisted by colours of the figures. Using various colours of clay suggests flavors as well as racial differences. However, since the figures are made from the same mold with only superficial and random differences, the colour bar is challenged. The attraction of sheer number certainly figures in this installation. Witness the effect of Chinese Emperor's Body Guard of life size terracotta warriors buried at Shensi, Buddhist Jizo Mizuko mourning gardens in Japan, etc. Conformity and multiplicity may comfort on some level (security, honor, productivity), but it also has an insidious undertow of devaluation of the individual, even alienation."
