Family Heritage By:Matt Takacs

This piece is an exploration of my family heritage. The work is a combination of my mothers maiden name and my fathers last name. My mother is Italian and her last name loosely translates to Barrell or Small Barrell (Maker). This means that our ancestors were Barrel makers at some point in Italy. My fathers name translates from Hungarian to Weaver. I fondly remember covering up with my grandmothers handknitted blankets, especially a golden yellow one. Knitting is a type of weaving and I used a ball of yarn to create the inner core. The core also had protrusions through the top of the barrel so that I could later insert the knitting needles into the ball of yarn and have one end of the yarn come out through the top as well. The technique used was negative core casting which involves a refractory core and a lost wax out shell. It is a somewhat difficult technique but is very exciting and can yield really nice results!

• System 96 casting nuggets
• Knitting needles
• Golden Yellow yarn