California Funk was heavily influenced by three historical avant-garde movements: Dadaism, Surrealism, and Pop Art. Artist Jordan MacLachlan’s mixed-media installation The Day My Heart Broke pulls visual cues from all three, tightly aligning it with the ceramic Funk movement. According to Held, the ceramics of California Funk mixes “personal iconography with historical references and (is) fortified with a fascination for storytelling; the Funk artist created objects containing multiple meanings.”
MacLachlan’s piece has a strong intimation of storytelling. It features a circle of muskox between which surreal, humanesque figures seem to be emerging. The muskox herd is placed in its traditional circular defensive positioning with heads pointed outwards. At the centre of the circle, the old, young and vulnerable are usually protectively located but, in this instance, are conspicuously missing. Instead, there is one last human figure who seems to be in the act of leaving the safety of the circle. Maclachlan says that she struggles with the human species’ incomprehensible but increasing disconnect with the rest of the natural world. This disconnection has led to escalating instances of environmental catastrophe, Covid 19 included. We as humans are leaving the protection of our safe and balanced ecosystem, as represented by the herd of muskox, and by doing this, we become warped and place ourselves in danger.