Week 1 - A New Beginning
After an eventful last weekend in Minnesota participating in the Cannon River Clay Tour as an Emerging Artist (!!!), I made the move to Indiana with 1/3 of my belongings and a heavy load of heartbreak from leaving behind the people I love dearly. This week has been hectic and jam-packed, and I’ve barely had time to come down from the fun of the pottery tour (I met tons of incredible, kind artists and even sold some pots! I was especially enthralled and inspired by the work of Al Holen and Olivia Tani, amongst so many others) before being thrown into the swing of things at IUS. But I am SO grateful and excited to be here. I’ve been dreaming of this week all summer and am still processing that it’s all here and real.
The theme and challenge of this week has definitely been imposter syndrome. I am working hard mentally to affirm myself that I am meant to be here and worthy of this position, but am so intimidated by the talented post-baccs around me. Having only thrown a handful of pots all summer, my creative brain is rusty, and I feel quite aimless in my making. But I’m taking things one by one, and I can already feel myself getting back on the track I left at St Olaf.
The first thing I did after Wednesday’s class was talk to GH and Molly about potential clay bodies to start off with, and ended up settling on some of GH’s Frankenstein porcelain (a mix of porcelains he made this summer) to throw with, just to get warmed up again on the wheel. Then I made a big batch of class stoneware, which I intend to sculpt with until I figure out a recipe more tailored for my future endeavors. When I returned to the studio on Thursday, I threw some practice cylinders and goblet parts, as well as a medium sized vase. In stoneware, I threw some chucks and an altered base for a small-ish sculpture. It feels so good to be back on the wheel. Side note: I also visited Kentucky Mudworks in person on Wednesday, which was super cool, because I used to work at a pottery supplies store in Montana (formerly Garage Clay) that stocked a ton of KYM clay!
One road block I’m dealing with is that I sillily left behind some of my studio supplies and will have to wait a month to get them back, when my mom brings the rest of my belongings down from Minnesota. Amongst these supplies are my foam pads and pillow for sculpting, all my wiring supplies for my lamps (though I have the lightbulbs, woo!). I acquired a cheap pillow and will have to borrow IUS’s foam for the time being, and buy some more lamp wire and a socket.
Today (Friday), I finished my goblets and intuitively worked on my sculpture, which I decided is going to be a lamp. I’m not ecstatic about the form — I feel that the farther I got with it, the more complex it became, in ways that don’t work with the base. I didn’t have a plan for it, it is more of a warm-up project, so in the future, I plan to work from maquettes and sketches, though still intuitively and with allowance of change and adaptation. I am also focusing on tension points and internal supports on a small scale, before I go bigger. I hope to make a few more sculptures of this scale next week, playing around with different forms.
This sculpture is nearly finished, but needs a hole for the lamp wire and more refining on the top. I’m also not ecstatic about the plasticity of the class stoneware — it’s likely that the batch I made is just too fresh, but I might need to try a recipe with more ball clay and/or fine grog (thanks, GH, for the insight).
weekly gratitudes
~ everyone here is so welcoming, accepting, helpful, and kind
~ I feel like the world’s at my fingertips!
~ Sarah E, for helping me carry heavy things up the stairs and allowing me to move into her cozy space :)
thinking about:
finding a through line of body and emotion in my work; how to meld vessels that express emotion through indentations and marks made by the body with abstract forms made intuitively with the body which allude to the body
change is the only constant, embracing temporality
artists on my mind:
Paige O’Toole, Henry Moore, Kelsie Rudolph, Austin Coudriet