BFA Painting Critique

 I had my next to last BFA critique last week. I had a lot of helpful feedback and I'm ready to use it for my next two pieces. Here are some photos of some of the work set up.

A photo that Brian shot during my critique.

This is my newest painting. It is still in progress.

Breaking things on accident and on purpose.

I finally figured out why my pots were cracking! Apparently this little guy was to blame. He looks vicious enough.

These are the two pedestals that I made for my ceramic work. They aren't going to be just normal pedestals though. 

This is a practice run for the ceramic work that I will be putting into our BFA show. I am still working with the concept of time and how it seems to slow down during an accident. I cut a triangle out of the base of this pedestal and tied a string to it. At first the pedestal appears to be normal. When I tugged the string the triangle shaped corner pulls out from the base and all of the pieces begin to topple over with the pedestal.

The piece ceramic work for the show will be much simpler. There will be 16 pieces that stack straight up. I am going to film the work breaking and have it playing on a projector behind the fallen pedestal.

This is a ceiling fan motor that I have now wired to a dimmer switch to slow the motor. The fan is then wired to a plug in that is attached to a remote control receiver. I will be able to turn this motor on and off with a remote. On top of the pedestal will be a stack of bowls with a string through the middle that attaches to an arm on the motor. As the motor turns the bowls will collapse over as the string has slack and then sit back up. I want to display this at our BFA show and turn it off and on to make people think that they have knocked over the work. My hope is that I will have the ability to make people experience the slowing of time with the push of a button on a remote control.

Train Kiln

 We had our second wood fire in the train kiln that we built last spring. We even fired it off in 18 less hours than the last time. Drier wood, awesome workers and a good rhythm were a big help.

We carefully loaded our work into the kiln. Keeping the pots close together directs the flame through the pieces which creates the colorful patterns when it is finished.

Megan, Dan and Ian kept loading as the sun was setting.

Throwing in the wood gets pretty toasty when the temperature nears 2000 degrees.

Jay kindled through the wee hours of the night.

When the kiln was unloaded, we had a Space Lab show to display our work.

It is customary to make kiln gods to protect our pots through the firing.

This is some of my work from the firing.

Train Kiln Preparations and Silverfish.

I've been painting these silverfish. I decided to paint these silverfish while thinking about site specificity. I have about 15 more to make before I'm finished. They will be crawling up the pillars at the Mammoth where we are having a BFA off campus show in December. The interesting thing about silverfish is that they shed their exoskeletons several times throughout their lives. When they shed this skin it can ruin clothes and clothing. They are gross little things. I want to sculpt a silverfish and then cover it with tinted glue and peel it off to leave in a pile at the base of the pillar on the floor.

Today we split wood in preparation for our firing this weekend. We are ready for firing after splitting the wood and repairing the kiln.

This is about half of the wood that we split today.

Today was my first time using a wood splitter. It was much better than using an axe.

At the end of the day I was ready for my pajamas, slippers and some hot tea.

Earnest Bowls and Leaving the Walls Behind

      Ian Shelley and I had a good chat on what an earnest wood fire bowl looks like. So I spent the six hours of my class time this week trying to make one. I paid a lot of attention to the relationship of the rim to the foot and also the throwing lines that I left on the side.

     I gave up on white stone ware and half porcelain/half stoneware and tried using gold art alone. It is the best that I have used so far. It is smooth but holds up well. It feels a little stiff at first but I really haven't felt as comfortable with any of the other three clay bodies I've used this semester.

 A new glaze recipe that I tried out didn't turn out so hot. The pitcher on the left turned bright dark red in the thicker areas. It is a half porcelain clay. I was expecting that color but a little more on the purple side. The little shape on the right turned green with hints of purple. It is made from a white stoneware recipe.

    This picture isn't very good. I am going to take some photos with a nice camera tomorrow and hopefully replace these. The important part is that my paintings stopped using the wall this week. The figures are hanging from the ceiling ant the walls and floor are made from foam. It only took 44 hours to make it happen. There is another piece that is mostly completed but this one took the most work.

     The figure on the right isn't quite where I want him because I am limited by the dropped ceiling at school. There will eventually be a rug that spill out of the dark carpet and breaks up the line across the bottom as well.

     There will be quarter round on both sides of the carpet at the bottom and the one that is there needs stained.

     Those are the only two things that I have planned to do. I'm finally almost finished with it!!

A lot of projects at once....

I have been working on cutting out silverfish. They are gross little bugs that shed their exoskeleton several times throughout their lifetimes. I want to do about double the amount that I have here. At the BFA show I want these to be on the floor and crawling up a post at the Mammoth. I have been thinking a lot about site specificity after we have decided where to have our show. 

 

 

I have also been working on my video about time. I used my Go Pro to film my drive, bike ride and walk down the same stretch of road. I was thinking about re-filming this video because of the camera being shaky. After critique I realized that it might be nice to keep the movement of the camera. I want it to show the difference in the movement of the different modes of travel. I don't want it to look like I just drove at three different speeds. I also think that if I re-filmed this I might be too aware of what the video will look like. I like that this video is raw and filmed in a way that I didn't know what it would look like.

I'm close to finishing this painting. I just need to darken the shadow around the waist so that it has more dimension. The eyebrows, beard and hair also need more glazes. They are a little flat at this point.

Benin Hip Masks and Poncho's Disapproval

     I have spent most of my week researching this hip mask from Benin. It is a representation of Queen Idia. I have been researching it for a power point presentation that I will be doing about the assosciations that the people of Benin, Africa made between the Portuguese and the African Lung Fish.  Both had the ability to live on land and water and they also believed that they both had the ability to return from the dead.
     Although it has been interesting, I am looking forward to having time to paint and work in ceramics after this is over. This class is sucking up a lot of my studio time.

Poncho also gave me this look to let me know he did not approve of the attention that my textbooks were getting.

 This week I am going to film a video that will also be a representation of our perception of time. I am going to drive, ride my bike and walk down the same street. I will be filming this with my husband's Go Pro. I thought it would be funny to re-purpose a camera made to catch high speed action to film an art project. The three videos I will film will be displayed next to each other vertically.

     I have decided to film it on the end of Frankfort Avenue. It is quiet and has quite few interesting focal points. A giant sign for the impound lot, a rock/gravel distribution place, a faded billboard for the future site of a botanical garden, rail road track, overpass, boat showroom, a new building for condos (that now blocks the view of the river) and  this giant facade that is in the middle of the road. I think it will also serve as a reference to time. I just need to wake up early enough one morning when there aren't many cars on the road so that I can walk down it. 

     My stack of ceramic pieces is getting larger. I am going to continue to make these throughout the semester. I excited about where they are going and that the idea seems to grow and change every week. I want to have about 200 of these forms. I hope to get them more varied in size and shape.

     Instead of hoping that I will mess up and they will fall while I am building them, I think that I am going to try not to let them fall until I can knock them over. I might use a wrecking ball made out of ceramics to do this with. I'm still thinking about that though.

    5 Weeks of classes finished!

     This week I have been working on making forms for my balancing/time project. In order for this to be successful, I think that I will need to make nearly 100 different forms throughout the semester. I have about 30 made now and I am going back into the studio for quite awhile today and tomorrow.   
    

I used this image for a little motivation.

   
 There are a few decisions that I have been trying to make...

 If I am going to be filming the process of stacking these and displaying both the film and the remnants of the crashed pieces, will I need to do the filming in the place that they will be displayed?

These are the flat forms that I made today so that multiple pieces can stack on the same level using counter balance.

 I've also been trying to decide on the glaze techniques that I will use for this project. I know that I would like for there to be a lot of variation from piece to piece. I still haven't decided what colors that I would like to use or if I would prefer to have bright colors and fire them in the electric kilns.


     I have nearly finished the first installation of the semester. There are a few bugs to work out with it. I don't like the fishing line I used to hold some things up. I'm going to think of other ways to support the sheet and hold the feathers in the air. I would rather show the material that I use to hold them there than to use the fishing line because I think it is distracting.
   
      I also need to adhere the wallpaper to a piece of foam so that it will get rid of the seams and ripples. It is just temporarily tacked to the wall right now. I think the background may also start to come out from the wall instead of remaining flat. That way the fake walls will also stand out from the walls. I haven't made a complete decision on that yet.

     I am getting worried that this is starting to look gimmicky. I am trying to make sure that it doesn't get overly acceptable. I don't want to create a bunch of "Family Fun" type of art. I think that lighting will play a big part in that. 

This week has been full of questions but I have made a lot of progress. I'm going to continue to explore.     

Gravity

     Here are some of the forms that I am working with for my modules project.
     In the spring I was exploring time as perceptional. I am very interested in the phenomenon of how time seems to slow down during an accident or traumatic event.
     In a previous blog post there are photos of this show in which I broke pottery and filmed it. I also reassembled it on fishing line and glued objects that appeared to be spilling out of various vessels.
     I hope that the viewer experience this phenomenon and reports their feelings about it instead of simulating these experiences for the them. This is why I have been making these forms to be stacked by the viewer that will possibly topple and break in the gallery. 
     I began to think more about the forms and what they looked like this weekend. I began to ask myself why. I think that it is important that I think about the aesthetic of the project. So it lead me to break it down.
      My time project has begun to incorporate my interest in gravity and balance.

     Last year and again this year I have had problems with my balance. Shortly after going to the doctor having them tell me that nothing is wrong I listened to a Radio Lab podcast about a lady with severe Vertigo. A problem in the inner ear causes problems with balance, vision and a sense that gravity isn't functioning in a normal way. I'm not sure that I have this but many of the things that she talked about had also happened to me but not so severely. I was intrigued about the part where she mentioned that the floor seemed to come up to meet her. For about two weeks the floor seemed to curve up to my feet. I felt as if I were always standing on a gently sloping hill, even in my kitchen.
      I started to research centers of gravity. The aesthetic of these objects need a deeper meaning. So far my idea is to calculate the center of gravity on these objects and mark them with glaze. I'm not sure on the technique that I am going to use. Also, their shapes need to be such that their center of gravities change from one object to the next.
     Gravity and time have more in common than it may seem. When we learn to walk as babies, the timing is more difficult to master than the mechanics. We have to time our steps in order to work with gravity. Our steps are timed with how our feet meet the ground. As we move our brains have learned to time our motions as well as factor in gravity. I plan to explore more of these links and similarities.


A new glaze! This one should be a semi-transparent, glossy red violet. 

Here are a few progress shots of my paintings so far. They still need more paint and some corrections in the drawing of the faces but they are getting much closer.

I have also cut out two new ones.