Week 11 - Learning and Living
spooky donuts at the demo!
After a great Halloweekend, this week kicked off with an epic demo by Stephen Creech involving 3D printing slip “dip n dots” (the slip formed a little shell when dropped into a basic [?] water solution) and flash freezing pots with liquid nitrogen! I really appreciated his approach to making and experimentation and the way he embraces play, unpredictability, and failure in his studio practice. It was also interesting to learn a bit about his job at Amaco (for non potters, this is a dominant brand in pottery glazes, wheels, and tools). I had no idea they were based out of Indianapolis, and I hope and look forward to potentially visit/tour the warehouse in the future!
I was honored to have one of my sculptures accepted into the IUS juried show, which was juried by Stephen. I also found out Tuesday night that two of my cups (a goblet made this past spring, and one of my new sculptural cups) were accepted into the New Harmony Clay Project Filled Up 4: A Ceramic Cup Show! This was my first time mailing work to a gallery, and it was a bit of a fiasco figuring out how to send my work with prepaid return shipping, but I did it and learned a lot in the process. I’m proud of myself for applying to this call, and will be applying to a couple more in the coming weeks.
itty bitty wheel! (its like two inches wide)
Monday night, the Dirtbags had a fun Halloween themed makeathon where we worked on our own projects, ate sandwiches, and watched some of Scream. I brought my spider to the studio, tried out the mini pottery wheel for funsies, and threw a handful of cups and goblet parts, of which I have yet assemble/carve.
I wasn’t able to get into the studio as much as I’d hoped this week due to picking up some extra work shifts (hence the late blog post), some life stuff, and coming down with a cold. I’m also just in a bit of a making lull — I have been processing and reflecting on a lot this week, but not doing a lot of physical creating. I do think this is important to my process, and I am trying to be gentle with myself as I stew with thoughts and ideas that I know will inform my work in the future. This is an incredibly new and busy time of my life, and I am still grappling with all the changes that have happened for me in the past couple months, along with many larger realizations about life that I will be meditating on for years to come.
I am trying to be gentle with myself during busy weeks that hinder my productivity in the studio.
All that being said, I unloaded a mostly successful bisque of propriocepta sculptures (need to do some crack repairs) and cups/goblets that I can’t wait to soda fire. Stay tuned! :)
With the help of Molly, Lilly, and GH, I flipped my big heavy sculpture "bottom” that I make last week, and it was bad. I should’ve let it harden up more, because it started collapsing from the weight as soon as it was flipped. My incredible studio mates helped bandage it up on the spot and convinced me to keep it (I wanted to reclaim the clay immediately and give up). But it’s paper clay and was wet, so it might be fine — Molly told me to let it “marinate” for some time, so I will come back to it when I have the energy to.
After that fail, I decided to try out a new method of building big that wouldn’t require me to flip the sculpture over in the greenware phase and began building two halves from identical slab bases. I hope for this sculpture to be around 70 inches tall when assembled. I just started these halves and plan to incorporate more intricate/interesting moments throughout the height of the form.
My paper clay has gone multicolor due to the mold. It's fun and very smelly.
weekly gratitudes
~ My body for carrying me through hard, busy weeks
~ Having studio space and access to clay and kilns
~ Having a safe, clean space to come home to everyday
~ Building community in the studio, building community at work
artists on my mind
Ellery Ekleberry, Stephen Creech, Jing Huang
thinking about:
How sacred and short life is
How one could love a human before they are even a developed person; unconditional love; familial love
How my animal brain can put so much thought into a work and destroy it all in seconds
How to not waste life; how to embrace temporality and impermanence and fleeting time when over a third of my waking hours are spent doing work that isn’t my “passion” or “calling,” which exhausts my body and mind
How diverse everyone’s realities and struggles are