More plaster carving

I wanted to explore plaster carving more, still thinking about the interactive quality that I want to bring into my work. I cast some bricks of plaster (after a long boring process of making wooden boxes of exact proportions to set them in) and carved a blind drawing into it before gilding, and then scrambling the image. I like the idea of maybe doing this on a large scale and inviting viewers to rearrange to form their own drawing. I wonder about the gold though- is it gaudy? I also potentially have a problem with the whiteness of the plaster. It's like a new page, with mobility, but maybe that's not what I want to evoke. I would prefer it to be terracotta but this has its own problems, because if it's presented unfired it may pose health and safety risks, but firing it will make the whole process too long and potentially very unreliable.