Spotlight on Artist Kayla Vidal

Welcome to The Elective’s digital art museum, dedicated to the incredible work of AP Arts students. Each week we highlight a work or series created in one of the AP Arts concentrations—AP 2-D Art and Design, 3-D Art and Design, and AP Drawing (the AP Program also offers Art History and Music Theory)—as well as a statement from the artist (and, occasionally, their teacher).

This week we feature sculpture made by Kayla Vidal from Moorestown Friends High School in Moorestown, New Jersey, which was included in the 2019-20 AP Studio Art online exhibition. (You’ll find the exhibition halfway down the page, under the heading AP Exhibit.

Here’s Kayla’s statement on the work:

This piece is titled “Tipsy” and is 32 in by 16 in by 16 in. For this piece, I drew inspiration from one of my favorite childhood novels and films: The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland. Following the theme of escape in my concentration, I wanted to portray the different emotions someone might wish to escape by reading this book. By using delicate objects stacked in a precarious way, it invokes the feeling of imbalance and anxiety, emotions people often want to escape because they are uncomfortable. The character The Mad Hatter is anxious and all over the place. Drawing inspiration from him and his house inspired me to use teacups. I chose walnut for the rest of the table because I thought the dark natural color of the wood complimented the white porcelain of teacups. I used epoxy to seal each cup and saucer together. I also used mortise and tenon joints to ensure the three wooden legs were sturdy. The hardest part was finding a way to make them unbalanced while still keeping the tower balanced enough to be a table leg. The cup leg also broke five times before completion.