Sunday in the City | 2

This first week has just flown by! I am settling in at my job and everyone seems really nice.

This weekend I went to Brooklyn to visit my cousin and did some exploring there. Went to a barbecue in Bushwick, then to brunch at Tandem and the Brooklyn Museum today for the Ai Wei Wei exhibit.  The chair and table pieces are amazing every single time I see them!

And surprise! There was also a giant Swoon installation that was just mind-blowing.  I've only seen her wheat paste work (there was one around the corner from my house in Tallahassee when she came for an artist talk), but the addition of paper cuts, two ships (that she actually floated down the Hudson in!) and a SEVETY-FOOT TALL tree made from hand-dyed fabrics was so, so magical.  I would just die if I ever ran into her on the New York streets. Now I've got the itch for some collaging and paper cutting...

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.

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?

Inside

Inside, 2012. Pine needles, twine, glazed white earthenware fired to cone 04.

Never going near a pine needle again. So many scratches.

Thirsty?

This is a new project that I have started in Pamela's class.  I am casting beer bottles... I don't think I want to go into the meaning so much yet, because this is really a piece that will be about process.

Here is the making of the worst mold on the planet.

This was my first slip cast ever! I can't use it because there is so much plaster on it and of course it did not come out in one piece... but it's still awesome to see a pretty much exact replica of something that you created yourself! 

Keeping this for sentimental value because I am weird.

Wild

Wild, a public art installation near a pathway along Silver Lake in Tallahassee, Florida.  

Created for Linda Hall's Creative Inquiry class.

This drawing is an oldie but a goodie, first seen here.

First Project of the New Year

Here is the first project I have been working on in Pamela Theis's Advanced Ceramics class.

I am in the process of making 6-7 mouths that will hang in nests and be installed in trees.

A little fun in the BFA warehouse. Old projects meet new projects.

Anyone else hungry?

This is my installed final project for ceramics class. I want to hear your thoughts about it.

White earthenware fired to cone two with a cold surface treatment of acrylic paint, butcher's block conditioning oil and powdered graphite and tied with a cream satin ribbon.

Hangs at a little over 3 feet tall, varying widths.

Update

I haven't blogged in a while, so I just wanted to condense everything that I have been working into one entry.

These are white earthenware honeycombs that I have been working on in ceramics.  The largest is a little over 16"x12", and there are two smaller ones.  I am very attracted to homes, so I wanted to explore the habitat of an insect.  These are coming out of the kiln today! Hopefully they will be installed in the Art Alley.

This is a side project that I have been working on.  Lately I have been very obsessed with the idea of hair and its links to identity, strength, and weakness, as well that the oddity it becomes when it is detached from a person.  This should be finished this week.  It is a banyan tree that will be draped in long braids.  The drawing is around 5.5'x3'.

These are two projects that I have been doing in printmaking class.  The one at left is a litho print that was created in Photoshop.  It incorporates an old family slide, one of my drawings, collage, and a photograph I took.  The picture at right is my screen print project.  It involves the old and outdated practice of phrenology.  I was experimenting with which traits I actually possess with the traits that I should possess according to the bumps and indentations in my skull.

Finally, these are porcelain molars that are also coming out of the kiln today.  Like hair, these are objects that become strange when apart from a jaw.  I have also created small porcelain nests that I hope to fire in the soda kiln that these babies will sit in.  As for the meaning? I think it has to do with identity again.  I'll get back to you on that when I get some final pictures up.