Destruction

This week in IP studio time I was in the ceramics studio building away and dealing with lots technical issues. My larger piece that was budding decided to fall over a collapse on itself. I was able to salvage the base and a middle section. I am using the base for another piece, and the middle section for surface experiments.... except on Thursday when I opened the kiln it had completely blown up. I think that it was too wet when I fired it, in addition to my iffy building decisions on that section. Anyways, that piece was not meant to be in the world and so I am moving on. Right now I had four pieces going, two of which will be budding, one that is small and pretty much done, and then a small beginning section.

The crit on Thursday was really helpful for me in many ways. Some good ideas were thrown out

-showing the different stages of growth

-Having a limb disconnected, or shown in the process of re-growth

-Comments about my smaller first pieces looking like mock up or mini versions of my larger... meaning that I have a lot of space and narrative that I can play around with

-Agreement that a natural organic looking surface is the most appropriate

-and some other stuff I'm hoping I can ask Erica about from her notes

I'm really happy that my ideas about my organism are translating to my classmates. This critique was really reassuring, and makes me more excited about working... especially since we booked our space for the IP show!!! We've booked the Yellow Barn (on Huron, just past first street) for three weeks. I adore the 5 other women in my group and their artwork. We've got a lot of fundraising, planning, advertising etc. that needs to get done, but we're all up for the task. Just so you guys know, I'm showing with Katie Barrie, Carolyn Wiedeman, Mariam Sviddler, Saree Silverman, and Anita Sidler. In terms of transporting my pieces.... yeah it's going to be rough, but it will get done and John is an excellent resource when it comes to that.

This weekend I am going to continue building, and do some more wash tests because Saree is doing a firing to cone 6 (which is what I need) so I'm going to hop on that.

I also did shaving cream art with my preschoolers this morning and they loved it, although it was a huge pain in the ass to clean up (for some reason I though that they needed some pazzaz/bling so I gave them confetti and glitter, awful idea)

off to work:)

BEAT Battle

Hello! This week for IP I spent my studio time in the ceramic studio. These weeks seem to be going by very fast, which kind of scares me. I feel like I have no time to think about anything.... anyways, I'm ready with this new beautiful loner computer from IT (because my keyboard and track thingy are broken boo:( .

So, some exciting progressions are that I loaded my first two bug pieces into the seven foot kiln. We had to use a forklift!! It was so freaking cool/I was about to pee my pants the entire time they were up in the air. I am waiting to fire the kiln until I finish the two more medium pieces, which will hopefully be this weekend because I am really getting tired of working on them. I have in progress pictures of them shown below.

I had a good conversation with Seth and Amanda on Tuesday that makes me want to slow down for a day or two and really think about what my next steps are in terms of building and surface. They suggested that I possibly look into creating a narrative, if just for my self, about the creatures... so how do they grow or reproduce? what do the different surfaces mean, what does the scale have in relation to say their age of sex? I like the biological terms being throw around such as, fission, budding, and asexual. If I spend some more time thinking and planning it'll help me figure out what I'm really trying to day with these pieces. I wish clay didn't take so damn long to build with.... hopefully I will feel better when I can just move on to small organisms. I feel a lot of time pressure to produce, which is good I guess.

this weekend (it's sunday now) and I'm pretty much done with the bigger pieces, just a few more segments to finish up.. I've got two smaller ones going now.... yet it's taking a lot of effort to scale down. The two pieces bases I'm working on now aren't as small as the first two, but they're much considerably smaller than the large ones. I'm hopefully going to be able to fire a surface study I did earlier so I can play with washes (and maybe slips.... it might be too dry though). I'm thinking that if I can a skin, organic looking surface by firing up to cone 6 that my pieces would survive the firing and have a nice surface. I fear that I won't have this ready for the critique on thursday, which stinks because the classes feedback would be nice. Hopefully I can finish these big ones and make progress on the new ones that people will have work to talk about.

Anyways... I'm off to do some soul searching with my IP project

cool.

binary fission---- create a piece that is in progress of splitting--- two pieces that are exactly the same--- arms could be the beginning on the split

Shout out to F.O.K.U.S. for putting on Michigan's first BEAT BATTLE!!

Toro y Moi

This week in IP.... I was in the ceramics studio getting down. I feel like I'm beginning to find my rhythm again with school and working. I also received some good feedback and suggestions from the small group discussions we had today. As of right now I am working on two medium sized pieces (shown here) and just began the first sections of two other pieces. I'm really excited about the second piece because I'm breaking if off into two sections to make some tentacle arm like structures. Yay for diversity.

I am currently struggling with my surfaces (as I always am), and how to address color and texture. For some reason, my intuition tells me that I want my pieces to be white, and/or a more natural looking surface. If I give them brighter colors, or colors at all really, I feel like they may look more goofy, fake, tacky, than I want them to. I think by using a white slip (or maybe glaze for the pieces that are already bisqued) I can allow certain parts to become exposed, and then when high fired the exposed parts would have a nice roasted concrete surface.


A suggestion I received to day was about having a sort of infected or mutated area growing or exposing itself along some of my pieces, drawing upon more connections between humans and the creatures... so looking at skin, skin folds.. applying something to the surface (different from the digging away texture that some of my work already has). Erica brought up a good point, that something else besides the forms needs to differentiate, and I totally agree. I think I am being timid about applying and taking away form the texture and form itself. I also need to vary the sizes of the individual sections more. Yes yes yes. Lots of things to think about. I think the most important thing for me is to be working constantly. I have four pieces going on now, and I plan to have many more coming. I also need to start talking with people about showing off-site, because that will really make a difference in whether my pieces being white will pop out or blend in with the surroundings.

Cool- off to mah bed

Space Time

Hello! It's been a while since I've updated on my project... due to the break, holidays and the new year. School is in full swing again and this semester is looking busy and difficult, yet exciting. I'm teaching a preschool art class at the YMCA on Saturday mornings, which after this weekend is looking to be a messy and valuable experience. I'm also taking Sadashi's "Way of Seeing" outreach class which I am really looking forward to. This semester we're going to the DIA and working with visually impaired K-12 Detroit school students in various mediums (ceramics, wood, painting). It'll be good for me to start working with kids again, they bring me back down to earth and outta my head.

As for IP, I think my review went well and I recieved some constructive and inciteful feed back. Some suggestions they told me to consider were (abreviated notes):
-Smaller scale= more diversity and emotion
-Explore more forms and structures
-Show the history and the metamorphosis of the forms, creating more unpredictable patterns
Increase the sense of mystery and engage the viewers more
Fold in, out, drip,
-Take advantage of subliminal associations of forms so that they feel the anxiety that I’m talking about
Get this in the relation of the forms and within the forms themselves
-Try using Slips—the surface appears to grow out of the form the way skin does
-Think about the floor and wall and how the creatures will inhabit the environment

As of right now I am trying to finish two medium sized sculptures and begin working on smaller scale works. I completly agree with the suggestion of decreased scale, I think it will help me to get my ideas out as well as get my concept out in a more efficent and clear manner. I've been doing a lot of sketching but it hasn't been allowing me to visualize what I want so I've decided to just start building and feel it out. I'm also ready to start experimenting with slips and washes because glazes aren't really working for my pieces (I kind of knew this but was continuing to experiment so I could figure out my options).

Another aspect I want to plan more about is how the pieces actually utilize the space they inhabit. Since the pieces I'll be making won't necessairly be as big as my largest I need to figure out ways to make the creatures seem larger than they are. I think utilizing the wall and making creatures that have multiple parts that spread across the floor could help increase the scale without acutally making them physically big.

This weekend is dedicated to writing my thesis paper. It's going ok, we'll see.

Drizzy