Big day tomorrow...

HUGE.

 

Thesis (The Final Countdown)

From top to bottom: Plans for a soda fire wall piece. | A very productive night in the studio. | Taking my work home with me for an all nighter. | First time playing with washes. | Beautiful test tiles! | Ordering some postcards for friends and family. | Finished small pieces!

Now to string them up and cover them in hair.  T-minus 8 days until install!

Thesis (in Progress)

From top to bottom: The beginning stages of research in the home studio. | Getting my hands on clay after a long summer - such a wonderful feeling! | A rare, cool September morning in the warehouse. | Plans for installation. | Plans on plans on plans. | Where all my money goes. | A nest is born. | Ready for the first firing! | Ghetto transport between studio and school. | Experimenting with some terra cotta. | A much needed happy hour with my best friend. | The first look at the clay and hair textures together.

Interiors

Interiors, 2012.

White earthenware, wax, acrylic paint, synthetic hair.

Bottle Study

This is the bottle study that I did towards the end of summer.  It was a leftover ceramic bottle from Damaged Goods.  The form was created when I was making press-molded bottles and didn't like the outcome.  A slam onto the table, and I fell in love with its distorted shape.  I fired it and tucked it away, knowing that I would do something more with it one day.

I was really just interested in experimenting with color, and after these were taken I put a very thin layer of wax on the outer surface (which was shown in the previous post).  It really has a skin texture. 

 

Bottle Body, August 2012

watercolor, wax, white earthenware fired to cone 06

Back to Bottles

New project #2.  I woke up this morning and knew that I had to attend to the mess that is my home studio.  It turned out not to be such a big clean-up and I sat staring at a twisted ceramic bottle from last semester.  

So I thought, "Let's play today."

And this is what I came up with.  I worked with fleshy-colored watercolors and wax to create a bodily appearance.  I was experimenting with the anthropomorphic nature of the bottle's shape.

I think this is a good start.  Hopefully there shall be more to come.

Drawing to a Close

Here is what I have been working on for the majority of the semester in my internship with my ceramics professor, Holly Hanessian.  It is a catalogue of her works that we have been sending out to museums all across the United States.  

We worked on the complete package, including envelopes, stickers, mailing labels, and miniature business cards.  We had the book bound with a local printer and worked collaboratively on the layout.

 

Holly is so great. Please check out her work at www.hollyhanessian.com.

Schism

Here is another assignment for Pamela's class.  This was for the mixed media assignment, in which we were challenged to create a piece that was 50% ceramic, 50% mixed media. 

I have had this idea in my head for a while.  I picked up a Home Economics handbook from Good Cents that was from the 1950's, and with Mad Men always on my Netflix queue, I have had the idea of women's roles and the schism between the public and private spheres stuck in my head.  While flipping through the handbook, I was really interested in the words that they used to describe household chores and what they mean when taken out of context- rules, separate, beat, method... I took these words, along with others, and wanted to put them inside an icon of female craft- the embroidery hoop- and recreate the idea of sewing.

Originally, I was going to have all ceramic circles within the hoops, but I found that incorporating fabrics with traditional, soft patterns would compliment the ceramic slabs, which were worked to have a very subtle lace texture through acrylic paint.  I took the idea of female identity to the next level by incorporating the hair of myself and loved ones, as well as synthetic hair in slabs which needed a hefty amount of hair.

A detail with the braided hair of my sister and myself.

Human hair, thread, fabric.

Synthetic hair and fabric.

Thread and synthetic hair.

The hoops are 4.25" in diameter and 12.5" in diameter.

White earthenware, fabric, embroidery hoops, thread, synthetic hair, human hair.

Folklore of the Teeth

Here is a project that I was working on for my final assignment for advanced ceramics.  Lately I have been finding myself exploring folklore and old stories that I have been finding in old books from my favorite place in the world, Good Cents.  

There was a simple concept behind this piece, and that was to illustrate the cultural beliefs that people hold about teeth, including the power behind them, the practices of curing toothaches, and how one's future can be determined through teeth.  I illustrated text that I pulled from a very interesting book (that has been probably sitting for years in remote storage in the library) entitled Folklore of the Teeth by Leo Kanner, written in 1928.  I was also inspired by a new idea that is trending- teeth tattoos.

L to R: Traveler, Urine/Mother's Milk/Christ's Blood, Tethered, Heimdal, Fish Vesu, 
Cradle Ornamentation, Evil Eye, and Milk Tooth Exchange

Detail of Traveler.

 Each tooth varies in size, from around 2.5" in diameter to 6" in diameter.  They are drawn on with pen and colored pencils, and coated in a thin layer of white wax. 

I am thinking of how to display these in the future... maybe tight little boxes that they can fit snugly in.  I am also researching different types of malleable wax and rubber.

I will probably make some more of these as I can't keep my nose out of this book! What the heck are some of these people thinking?!

Damaged Goods

 

White earthenware (press molds and slip casting) and sand, 2012.

A progression through time, a lifelong struggle.

Inside

Inside, 2012.

White earthenware fired to cone 04 and pine needles.  Installed in the forest around Silver Lake in Tallahassee, where the pine needles were collected from.

Going back to where you came from.

A strange happening in the woods.

What is growing?