New wire forms and a Collaboration!

I've tried for almost a year now to get ceramic slip to stick to chicken wire forms to be fired and still keep their shape. I have been terribly unsuccessful.... until now and I'm beyond excited! With the advice of ceramic artist, Anthony Foo and many many tests, I did it! So now i'm trying this technique with some much larger forms.. Like 5 feet tall forms.. I'll keep you posted... ha

I'm also working on a collaboration clay piece with close friend and roommate Kelsey Wishik. She threw the body of the piece on the wheel and I am adding slip dipped coffee filters in the openings. We are pretty anxious to see the outcome. I'll post it as soon as its finished :)

its been a while...

I havent had time to even slow down and take a breath, much less update my blog in quite a while. I feel like i've come a long way since my last post in my work as well as my personal life. Everyone and everything changes and evolves constantly and i am just now learning how to handle that. Here is a look at some of my work leading up to now from the installation in the summer.

installation

This summer was ceramics 6 for me, and since it was my last ceramics class, i found myself reflecting on the work i have done up to this point. i realized that i hadn't done anything that i was proud of, other than experiment ALOT. i had no finished pieces to show for all of the work i have done in ceramics 1-5. if you know me, then you also know i have a severe problem with focusing, which also hinders me from finishing things. as i looked at my portfolios from previous classes, i noticed that in all of the work i had done there was no representation of me or even a central idea... it was kinda all over the place. After doing some research, talking to my professor, and more research, i decided to start working on an installation. i had never worked like this before, and i soon realized that it forces you to think and construct in a completely different way. not only was i constructing separate wall pieces and floor pieces, but i had to make them fit together with the gallery space in mind. an installation is about creating an environment for the viewer, so half of your time is spent making the different elements and the other half is spent "installing" the pieces. i chose to do in installation in hopes of successfully focusing my time on one main objective in order to FINALLY have a finished piece ha. and after the summer semester was over, i honestly feel like i succeeded in that. i'm  happy that i have finally started to figure things out, its about time! ha

End of the semester....



i think i will convert these into hanging lamps...



Love these decals!



i also have a new obsession with slip casting. i want to cast everything!!



I taught myself how to do something i was interested in, and i feel like i learned more by just doing it on my own than i have in any other semester. Now that i have the kinks in my process worked out, i have two weeks to sketch out some ideas before i get back in the studio and cast or dip everything i see!! 

Metal Sculpture

In Sculpture this semester I wanted to make a series of teapots and teacups out of scrap and found metal. But just like most of my ideas, it changed a little as I went along.. This first piece was supposed to be a faceted base with a teacup on top. As I continued to work on it, "the base" just took on a whole form and started becoming something more than just a "base", so I went with it. Just a few days before crit is usually when I decide to make drastic changes to my sculptures and I usually have to just walk away or I'll never stop changing it up. But this time I realized that the bottom part of the sculpture would completely visually out weigh the teacup on top, so I got rid of the cup and busted a hole in the top of the "base". I learned alot from this piece, like the importance of a good clean weld, and that measuring pieces to fit together is real hard. Paying attention to those things would have saved me alot of time!

I have way too many different ideas for my ceramic work. I want to do so many things at once. Focus focus.. We have crit on Wednesday and I have to present FINISHED work because its mid-term and all.... Its just so hard for me to put the pieces that I have now into some sort of context that doesn't read decorative. I've been really interested in lampshades for some reason. Lampshades, lights, and light bulbs. I have a few "in progress ideas" that involve light. This is just one of them. Vessel forms made out of slip dipped cotton balls and battery operated lights.

slip experiments

lampshades made from cotton fabric and batting

bowls made from crochet doilies