Back in the studio

I started a new semester in a new ceramics studio, so you know what that means! ...Boring pictures of in-progress clay pieces!!! YAAAAAY!

Because I have extremely limited shelf space in this studio, I'm not really keeping anything I make until I'm satisfied with it. So no more misshapen bowls and stuff in the apartment, just the things I want to keep. The upside of this is that I can cut everything in half to see my technique and where I need improvement.

Today I made the tallest thing I've ever made (it's about 7 inches tall right now):



This teacher is explaining how to use our thumbs, which is nice because until now my thumbs kind of stayed out of the way. It's helping me make things taller, although after I made this I wasn't really successful for the rest of the day. SO whatever. I had a good run (haha).

Then I started my workstudy portion of the afternoon. I work from 3-6pm in exchange for class and studio time. First, I mopped the floors and wiped down the counters. Then I did the crossword.

Then at 4:30 the children's class started. It was chaos but SO MUCH FUN. The kids were ages 7-12, so I positioned myself between two 7 year olds at the wheel and basically gave them lots of attention in order to make sure they didn't fly out the window or something. One of the kids was so hilarious, I would say "I think you need more water," and he'd say "I agree!" or "I was just thinking that!" Ah yes. I'm sure you were.

It's also pretty amazing working with "normal" kids, aka, kids who have not suffered extreme abuse or trauma (this is my most recent experience working with kids). It feels so much different. I say to them, clean your tools, take your bucket to the sink, and come back to wipe down your station. And they do it! Okay, water gets everywhere, whatever, it's pretty much done how I asked them to do it.

And the behavior is enough under control that we can do funny things, like when we were looking at our hands and the girl said ,"it looks like I'm wearing mud gloves!" and I said, "I know, me too, look at my hands." She said, "no you have some spots without clay." "Well, I think you need to help me with that, then!" And then she wiped clay all over my hands so I had mud gloves, too.

That isn't to say I don't like working with kids who have a more difficult history, but it is very different. Working with these kids today makes me appreciate that work more, somehow.

Final Ceramics

My final work from my ceramics class! I knew I made my best work right at the end. Almost all of this was made in one sitting (wet) and also one sitting for glazing. I just glazed them quickly because when I try hard to make things look the way I want they often don't. But these look quite nice (and some look professional I think!)

I have more work not pictured here, some mugs I made a while ago, but aren't as nice as these.







This little jug is a "commissioned" piece from JewishGuy who asked for a little pub jug to put water in for his scotch. I made another little jug, which is really cute, but it's SOOOooo small (and I don't have a picture of it right now).




This (above) is a little flowerpot because I accidentally carved through the middle so I embraced it!





I REALLY like the way this last bowl turned out, how the blue is on the bottom, very cool.

Anyway, I left all of these at school because my critique is tomorrow and I'll just use these in the critique.

Crawling Green Glaze

I've decided I will feature interesting things about the ceramics stuff I post since I am now churning out a lot and it isn't so interesting to see picture after picture of bowls.

Today's feature is this crawling green glaze on one of my cups that recently came out of the kiln.




From what I can tell, glazes crawl when you put a lot of them on and they have the characteristic of crawling. It means something is melting in the glaze and dripping down the side as the kiln heats up.




Because this glaze crawls and creates these cool bubbles, this cup can't be used for food or drink (it will be hard to clean it effectively). The picture above is what the inside of the cup looks like, you can see the glaze is pooling.



I kind of love this crawling and bubbling the glaze is doing. Right now I have a flower pot in the kiln that has this glaze near the top. Hopefully it will compliment the green under-glaze I've layered on below it. The trick is learning to predict its movements.

I haven't developed any of my own glazes this semester. I feel I don't have time to really make and test glazes, so I'm just using the ones they provide in the studio. Maybe if I start renting a studio and have more time I can make test pieces and send them through with some of my own glazes...

More wet accomplishments

We're in the final push to make wet things before the end of the semester. Technically we have about 3 weeks left to produce new things, and after that will be rounds of trimming, glazing, and firing. So I have been trying to produce like crazy.

Last week I made seven mugs. I realized how much larger things have to be in order to be usable - 12% shrinkage is a lot of shrinkage. So I had to make some pretty oversized mugs.


The challenge for last week (for me) was to create handles. Handles are really hard. These handles look good from a distance, which is a blessing for this blog, but close-up they are a mess.

This week my challenge was to make bigger things. I struggled all morning and when I finally called my teacher over it turns out I was at a bad wheel. The bat was shaking on the wheel head so it was basically impossible to center large pieces of clay. I switched wheels and it was like another world.


So today I made two large bowls (about 10-12" diameter, which means they will be 9-10" diameter when they shrink, I think), one large serving plate, one small plate (perhaps to sit one of my flower pots on), three smaller bowls and two small cups (which are upside down because they started to dry unevenly).

I also glazed some things so we'll see how that goes.

The clay was really groggy today, which means it had a lot of rocks in it. The rocks were probably pieces of bisqueware - clay that had already been fired once. It's supposed to make the clay stronger but it makes it impossible to make anything thin, and it is hard on the hands. Luckily it was the bottom of the bag so they made some new clay that was much smoother and nicer. If you click on the picture you can see some of the rocks in the clay (although some of those rocks are actually sand that someone spilled on my piece, ahhh).

Unfortunately I can't go to the studio on Monday to trim these. I might not see them again until Thursday (more like next Friday) so I'm a little worried about them drying out. I've covered them in plastic, which usually works for a while. Here's hoping...

More glazed pieces emerge

Dun dun dun DUN! The teapot emerges. PHEW!


It looks better than I thought it would look. The top isn't pictured here because I took the picture at school and I'd already brought the top home. JewishGuy says it looks like an old oil lamp.

I try really hard to make clean lines with the glaze and get annoyed when it's all sloppy, but I like how it turns out when it's not clean, so from now on I'm not stressing.

Two more bowls:



I am surprised at how much everything shrank. I know they say 12% but that doesn't sound like so much. It is, though. So today in the studio I made 7 mugs and they are enormous so hopefully after the whole process is over they will be usable-sized.

New finished pottery!

I glazed these before Spring Break and when I got there this week they had been fired!

Sadly, the tea pot is missing. I don't know where it is. I found the lid but the teapot itself is gone. It could have broken or someone could have taken it by accident, I probably won't ever know. (Unless it turns up in the next fire somehow)


Look! BLUE! Look how pretty it is! Okay, that's what I'm going to do from now on.

The dark blue is "engobe," which is basically just clay with pigment mixed in. You put the engobe on the clay when it's still wet so it will bake into the clay itself and go under glazes.

I REALLY way over glazed that piece so I have no idea how it came out looking so nice. I thought I put too much on so I dabbed some of it off, which is why the light blue is splotchy. I kind of like it.



This is a flower pot. I didn't accidentally trim through the bottom, I chose to turn it into a flower pot because the shape was too weird for food serving. It's a really nice pot, though, except that the coolest coloring is inside and nobody will see it because a plant will be in there.



I like this little odd-shaped cup. It's supposed to have avocado engobe on the bottom but you can't really tell. I wonder if it would have down up better under a transparent glaze (like the blue engobe looks on the top piece)



I honestly don't remember how I got this blue color but it's beautiful. I will have to go back and see which one makes this blue. It's actually kind of purple-y.



This is the same glaze that in reduction firing looks deep brown. How exciting that it kind of looks green! It's over top of a transparent glaze that I used on all of the pieces to make them smooth and shiny.

Overall I am happy with these pieces. This was a cone 6 oxidation firing and I think that I might keep doing the cone 6 oxidation because the colors are so nice. Although the blue glaze that I used would be bright red in reduction firing, so I am going to see how that looks.

It's also kind of sad how much things shrink. I know they're going to shrink but it's still sad when something you remember being so big, something that was a triumph of large wheel throwing, comes out so much smaller than you remember!

I'm an ugly teapot, short and stout...

On Friday I created this little number here:


Well, it's hard to make something that's supposed to look like something. It looks like a teapot but will it eventually be one? Time will tell. It still has to be bisque fired and glazed and then fired again. The blue on the top is an engobe which I think is just a different colored clay that's been watered down and you can paint it on kind of like a glaze except you do it when the clay is still wet-ish.

There are four other pieces I worked on tonight but they're still wet and I have other things to show you, so moving on...

Thirteen pieces ready to be glazed and then sent to the kiln! I think I will glaze this Friday morning.


Well you can only see twelve in the picture above because one of them is hiding inside a bigger bowl.

Now I will break down these piles into smaller piles. The only one I'm not picturing is the wide bowl at the bottom of the middle pile... it just didn't make it into the pictures I took tonight.

Here are three smaller pieces:


One is kind of a mug with a teeeeeny tiny handle, which you can't even stick your finger through. It's more for decoration than practical use, but it is decent looking. The little cup in the front has an avocado engobe on the bottom. It looks really pale but I don't know what it will look like once it's been through the kiln.

Two larger pieces:


I felt that these two were too awkward to be bowls, the shape just was too weird. So I cut holes in the bottom and now these are flower pots, perfect for planting little plants :)

Medium-sized pieces:


Three of these bowls will be decent cereal bowls, maybe. The other two are weird. Most of these bowls are really heavy, too, because I was timid with trimming the bottom and they are heavy down there.

Two large pieces:



A bowl and a vase, yay! I like the shape of that vase. I made another one with a similar shape and gave it a similar engobe treatment, too, except instead of avocado (pictured here), I made it blue.

So there you have it... thirteen pieces to glaze, that should take about 2-3 hours, depending on whether I make my own glazes or use the pre-mixed ones in the studio.

Yes! Glaze recipes are my new OCD hobby. I get to calculate things over and over again for no reason. I am terrible at math but it doesn't matter if my calculations are wrong so it's okay! Maybe I will post some glaze recipes here along with pictures of pieces with those glazes. Look for that in an upcoming post...

Artist-in-Residence Group

Right now at my internship I am running a group that is kind of in the "Artist-in-Residence" style of art therapy groups. I sit in the room and make art for two hours and invite people to come in from the drop-in space to join me.

Today in class we made art about a type of group that we run and then talked about it. I kind of like the art piece that came out of this process. So here is my representation of artist-in-residence art groups:


I'm the blue figure at the bottom of the blue circle creating/existing in the blue space. Potential group members are the other figures who pop in and out of the space. I made it as an interactive piece so the figures can actually pop in and out by pulling little tabs stuck to their feet.

Close-up of the figure of me and one representing a potential group member:


The cool thing about the artist-in-residence style of group is that it kind of opens up the art room to the participants, so maybe they will feel like they can come into the art room at other times to work even if you're not there. It rests firmly in the "art as therapy" end of the spectrum of art therapy.

The Wheel Deal

Woo!


I'm actually making things! WHAAAAAAAT....


These last pieces are fresh off the wheel. My teacher told me to just leave the crap on the bottom until the piece is leather hard and then carve a nice bottom out. So these will sit here probably until Friday morning. The top ones I finished tonight.

YAY MAKING THINGS!

Self-care Stuffed Objects/Monsters

I started making felt stuffed objects/monsters in one of my classes as a self-care exercise. This was today's work:

From the front you can see a little pattern that, to me, symbolizes me with a bunch of pressure and stuff pushing down on me.


I decided to add cones to make it stand up like a table... no reason, just thought it would be interesting to sew on cones.


Then I turned it over and it kind of looks like a monster! One yellow eye, one peach eye, and an orange tail.


This monster is a little grouchy.

I love making these weird stuffed things! It's also fun to make sculptural pieces... this semester is all about the third dimension.

Wheel Part 1: Flat Things

I won't make every day a part of my series of the wheel but I'm pretty excited about the results of my first day back on the wheel after two years' absence.


The first day of class was a full day of class. We spent the first two hours doing hand exercises with clay and the the last 4 hours at the wheel. Our assignment is by next week to have 6 flat things and 6 other things that are flat or not flat. So here you see three of my flat things and one bowl. Also, one of the flat things is supposed to be at least 7 inches in diameter, so you can see the top right one is my big flat thing.

I like that the assignment is really non-specific. Making "flat things" is easier than making plates or trivets or whatever, since there's no expectation of what it's supposed to look like. It's just supposed to be flat.

I'm going back in tomorrow to finish the assignment.

The Wheel Strikes Again

OKAY EVERYONE.

...

We're giving it another try. That's right: THE WHEEL.

This week I begin my last semester in grad school. I am taking my last studio class and I've decided that class will be "Ceramics: Multi-Level Throw" - ie: on the potter's wheel.

Last time I took a ceramics class there was a lot of frustration. I wrote about the different techniques I used at the wheel, I talked about hours at the wheel trying to make it work, and I showed you the lopsided dishes that came out of my efforts.

I wonder how this semester will go!

Self-Disclosure: "i'm a jew"

I had a kind of weird conversation recently with someone. This person was under the impression that I was going to talk about being Jewish with my clients more than I do. Because, otherwise, I appear to just be another white person, someone who doesn't understand being a minority.

Anyway, I made a piece about it... I wanted to make a book where I could be revealed in pieces or as a whole.

I chose a skeleton to represent me because 1) I tried to draw myself and that was a disaster, and 2) because I really wonder how much disclosure she was thinking of. Just mention that I'm Jewish, or go down deep to my identity issues?

(I considered finding a naked person for this, but I felt like that would be too funny and not taken the way I intend.)

After making this I wondered if there was more relationship between making a skeleton to represent my Jewish identity in this book.

The image seemed gruesome to some but I think I am trying to express that I felt like I was being stripped of my individual identity. In this instant, I felt like what I am was more important than who I am. The parts of me that make me look unique (skin, fat, muscle, facial features, clothing) are all stripped away.

I kind of like this skeleton because he looks friendly to me. He has a posture that isn't like the standard medical posture, he's kind of extending a hand. He says, "Hey, let's make some art."

Problem/Challenge out of String

When I feel like things are particularly out of control and I am really agitated, what is most calming for me is to work with string. I had forgotten about this but I really think working with string is what got me through 7th grade (probably the hardest year of my life so far, with a bully who posed as my "best friend" and was both emotionally and occasionally physically abusive). In 7th grade, once I started making bracelets every night, spending hours tying knots, I soon was able to separate myself from this bully and asked to transfer schools for the next year.

I used colorful embroidery floss and started a little business that was perhaps surprisingly organized: 25c for a standard 3 string bracelet, 10c for every string after that - for custom orders it was 50c + the regular charges. I was a little entrepreneur. I made a lot of money in quarters that year, which partially went to buying more string (and eventually expanding to making beaded rings or including beads in the bracelets, also at extra cost). I'm still pretty proud of how organized it was. I used to display my inventory on my backpack (I hung the bracelets off of the back using safety pins) so people could see my wares as I walked the hallways. I did accept trades, as many girls were making elastic bracelets with big plastic beads - only a few years ago did I realize the colors of the beads on those bracelets apparently stood for various sexual acts the person wearing them was willing to perform. I just liked the colors.

My former bully was my biggest competitor in the market, but she priced her bracelets too high and her workmanship was shoddy. Everyone went to me, especially since I did custom orders, but especially because I wasn't an ass. So through the bracelet making I learned that nobody really liked this person who had isolated me and made me feel terrible about myself. I also had conversations with people who formerly hadn't spoken to me. I also spent a lot of time in a semi-meditative state, tying knots for hours at night, not thinking but allowing myself to relax. It didn't reverse the damage she had done to me, but it made me feel better in some way - is that wrong?

Anyway, I've tried crocheting at various points in my life and it is coming up again in grad school as an alternative medium for art therapy. However, I am sadly inept at crocheting. This is probably due to my inability to follow directions and keep track of what I'm doing.

Tonight I was feeling really agitated and angry (as you can read in my previous post about the craft fair). It wasn't only the craft fair that was making me angry, but I won't go into the rest here. I have a project due on Thursday where we are supposed to make an art piece about a problem or challenge at our internship. So instead of doing my standard watercolor painting, I dragged out the yarn and decided to crochet with no purpose and no design, letting whatever formed form, and not be disappointed in the results.

This is what happened:


I started with the circle, which was originally intended to be flat, but like I said I can't follow directions and now it is a mountain. The hand really grew organically, first I had a weird outgrowth of the circle, then a finger, then two fingers, then I realized it was a hand and finished the hand. I went back and reinforced the rest of the piece, including adding a handle, when I realized it looked a lot like a chamsa. I added the blue to the evil eye part to give it an extra protective element.


I think at first it was supposed to be about figuring out how to make all of the different elements work together. I started off with white, brown, and orange yarns, trying to use three pieces of yarn at a time. Then the orange ran out, so I added another yarn, which is kind of gray with multi-colored flecks in it. When I realized what was happening I was able to create a recognizable shape, but not just any shape, a protective shape.

I think one of the biggest challenges of my internship is figuring out how to be myself there. I feel so protective over people that I work with, but I think I don't take good enough care of myself. I have to see the bigger picture, and think of everyone involved and not just the particular client I am closest to at the moment.

I think the chamsa appeared as a wish to be more protected, because maybe I still feel very insecure there, even when I feel like I do a good job I don't feel secure.

Imagination Land

No pictures yet, still no camera, so ... IMAGINATION TIME!

Imagine my current project, a living wall tapestry, visually connecting family members to their namesakes. A fiber base made of fused white flexible plastics that makes a pattern when back-lit, hung with twine. Names of family members inscribed in green (not enough time to do what I wanted to do, which was embroider all of the names onto the fiber). Living plants are sewn onto the fiber connecting name to name, beginning at the bottom (roots hanging off of the tapestry) with the namesake, and ending at the top with the living relative, continuing above the top of the fiber.

Sound cool?

WELL MAYBE ONE DAY I WILL HAVE A CAMERA TO TAKE A PICTURE OF THIS (hopefully before the plants die!!!)

Another Bean Painting

One day I arrived at my Fieldwork class and someone passed along the message that the teacher had been in a minor car accident and would be late to class (our class was 5 hours long, so it is conceivable that she could be in a fender bender and then make it before the end of class). The eight of us looked at each other and said, well, let's have class without her until she gets here. Let's work on an art piece for an hour about our internships and then we will share for the last 4 hours or until she gets here.

(I am aware we are all nerds, but we only had 8 classes and most of us were dealing with some crazy stuff at our internships... it is also not too weird to think that a group of almost-therapists would be willing to run their own group when the leader is absent)

So we all got out our art supplies and began to work. Fifteen minutes later, our teacher arrives. The message had been lost in translation - there was a car accident on the highway and she was held up in traffic and was late because of that. We made our art pieces anyway but continued with class the way she usually ran it.

I really like the way she runs class, but it would have been interesting in a five hour class to spend an hour every week making a nice piece of response art and then sharing it as opposed to just the little art things I was able to make on my own time outside of class.

Bean...

Not the best picture but this is the painting I made in class last week about my internship.

Final Project Paintings Part 1

For my final project in my Fieldwork class I have to create an "artists book" about what I have learned about myself this semester. Since I do journal entries that include small pen drawings, I decided to turn some of the drawings into paintings, which I will then collect into a book. AND since I have heard that I am not posting regularly enough, I will post the paintings here, one at a time when I have a few minutes in the morning...

New art?

I have been doing a lot of little drawings in my journal but I am writing all around them, so I won't post them here. However, for my final project for my class I will be assembling a book made of paintings inspired by the drawings I'm making, so I will show that instead.

So much stuff is going on I am barely making art. But it's okay, I do make those little drawings, maybe one day I will have time to really do some art...

The Boy That Was A Wolf

Okay my grammar isn't amazing but OH WELL.

This was today's project. We had to take the story of someone in our internship and turn it into a fairy tale, making up as much as we wanted. It only had to be 3-5 pages so it doesn't go very much in depth.

Anyway, I couldn't think of what to write, so I started making a book to house the fairy tale, and then I was able to write the story. I've never bound a book like this before so it took a couple of tries to figure out how to tie it tight enough. But I never looked at instructions! (I don't know if that's something to be proud of or not!)