Week 15/16 - Cave Trip & Crit Week

Last week, I decided to take myself on a trip to Mammoth Cave to get some real-life visual inspiration. I’ve been wanting to take a trip to the caves since the beginning of the semester and I felt I needed a change of setting and a creative boost. I can’t clearly remember the last time I visited a cave, but I’ve always been fascinated by their beauty and otherworldly nature. It was amazing being able to experience some of the geological formations I’ve been obsessing over this semester in person. I was enthralled by the complexity and variety of patterns formed by the limestone. I chose the 3/4 mile “Domes and Dripstones” tour, which began with a steep staircase down a huge, narrow, untouched crevasse, then on through rounded tunnels and small canyons, all perfectly preserved beneath the sandstone layer that protects the cave’s integrity by sealing it from further water erosion. At the end of the tour, the cave opened up into an area that was no longer beneath sandstone, allowing water to slowly dissolve the limestone layer and create crazy calcite formations (stalagmites, cave bacon, etc). Of the most impressive is a giant waterfall-like formation named Frozen Niagara.

There was a moment in the tour where our ranger guide turned off the lights in the cave and our group sat in chilling silence for a few minutes, in the absolute darkness. It felt as if I was in the womb of the earth.

I just wished the tour was ten times the length; because of how dark it was and because I had to keep moving along with the group, so many of images I tried to capture turned out blurry. I want to return to Mammoth Cave again next year and spend some time in the area to experience more of the tours. I witnessed countless formations that I’d never seen or imagined anything near before, and I am eager to become more familiar with cave geology/study some of these formations in more detail and see how it influences my future work.

Finally, I finished the top half of my two part sculpture, which is 36” at its tallest point.

I really am struggling with this piece. I know it needs to be finished; I need to push through the idea in order to move on. I’m being really stubborn about it, and it’s hindered my productivity in the studio. Especially after my final crit, I am itching to return to small scale and quickly work through some new forms. My peers suggested a raku-fired small monument series, and I agree that this would be a good way for me to sketch out some little sculptures and get quick results. I also feel that raw raku surfaces would lend really well to my current work. Building large-scale is important to me for the sake of practice, challenging myself, and in the physical relationship it allows myself and my audience. On the other hand, it’s tiring and tedious work, and it’s easy to lose perspective on the form. Returning to small-scale making will allow me to make intuitively with less stakes and hopefully discover some new silhouettes before I start another big build.

My biggest takeaway from my final critique was the idea and reminder that monuments don’t necessarily need to be large. The work I am most proud of from this semester is my series of wood-fired goblets, and my peers suggested that I try making small sculptures like the goblet bases that are nonfunctional. I really like the idea of taking a break from the large-scale to create smaller additions to my world of imagined geological monuments.

I intend to continue my exploration with raw, atmospheric-fired surfaces and shino liners for my functional work. Again, I am interested in doing a raku series in the coming months to explore atmospheric surfaces with quicker turnarounds than wood/soda firings. Saggar firing is also not out of the question, though I lack knowledge and experience there. I enjoy the class stoneware recipe but had some bloating problems above cone 10 in the wood firing that I need to address-likely due to condensed areas of redart that weren’t fully mixed into my clay batch. I love the richness the redart adds, so I plan to play around with some other darker clay recipes (namely the Magnus/Kwong and Bede Clarke recipes on claybucket). GH has said that the Bede Clarke recipe is really touchy to being overfired, and I’m interested to see how far it can be pushed myself. There was some talk about a potential long reduction cool wood firing in the future where we only fire the front to cone 10 (back to ~cone 8), and this might be a long but sweet and exciting solution to the dark clay overfiring problem.

weekly gratitudes

~ Living so close to the world’s largest cave system + unending inspiration and geological wonders !

~ This program. This semester has been amazing, despite all my personal/work struggles. Even when I am in a creative rut, I feel more inspired and motivated than ever before + overwhelmingly grateful to be a part of such a supportive, humble, and driven little post-bacc community at IUS.

thinking about:

I’ve been finding more metaphors within my recent work’s focus on the concept of geological change and weathering + intuitive landscapes/monuments driven by emotion. My self understanding has been shifting and rapidly expanding these past few weeks and I have found myself questioning aspects of my identity that I thought to be solid and sure. It feels both silly and scary, as I grapple with the fact that everything is impermanent, even ideas within myself that I believed unchangeable. I’m expanding on the concept of emotion driving change by considering how identity and the understanding of oneself/the ego can shift and grow in complexity as time unfolds and/or as it is influenced by external changes.

I continue to return to and meditate on memories of early childhood as I realize my forms.