Intentional and Accidental Accidents

      These are two of the little vessels I made to depict frozen moments. I chose liquid spilling out of cups and pitchers because they are common or mundane accidents that happen all the time. I like the irony of using small unimportant accidents, that are a minor irritation, to convey my ideas of what our minds go through in major tradgedies or accidents.

 I finally ordered my casting resin to encase my broken pottery. First, it is time to experiment with it. I am excited.

      Here are all of my glazed pieces that just came out of the kiln. I've brought them home to take some photos of them before they are pulverized on Wednesday. Above are two of my mugs chosen for demolition. I want to make this harder on myself by chosing my favorite pieces. It is too easy to let go of the ugly ones and no turning back now.

It's Time for Glaze and Assemblage!

     Splashing cup number one is on its way! I hope to get a little thinner and more realistic rather than stylized with the splashes as I continue to practice. I am happy with this one as a beginner piece.
     I want to make three cups all the same size that will eventually simulate the stages of an accident taking place. This cup above is a practice for phase one. Now that I realize that I can work more thinly than this I'm excited to throw a few cups over the next couple of days and give it a go.
     I walked back into the kiln room today and realized how many cups and bowls I have huddled on the shelves. I believe it is time for some glaze! Which means it is time for a cup and bowl demolition. I may make a small party of it if anyone is interested in attending the event.
     I've been trying to think of some disturbing/ uneasy music for the background of my smashing video. The first thing that came to mind is Carmina Burana. I played it with my middle school marching band (we were cool) and it did nothing for calming my nerves while being in front of a crowd even though I was part of the music. 

Eggs and Bowls

 I've been working on my bowls all week as well. I have about 11 made with foot rings and a couple more that are drying. My main issue has been with the bottom of bowl where it curves in to meet the foot ring. Most of my bowls are a little thicker than I would like in this spot. I think I need to spend more time in the planning process before I start to trim the bowls at the end.

 I have 15 eggs made so far. I'm hoping to get a few dozen made. I would like to have about a dozen in the bowl, with a dozen spilling and a dozen or so broken on the floor. I was really worried after a failed mold, and two completely useless sets of broken eggs. Once I got the timing down the eggs started looking much better. I have gotten much faster now that I have figured out a technique so I hope that the next 2 dozen are even easier and faster to make.

Preperations

I started throwing my bowls this week. I have 4 made so far. At least 6 more to go. I decided to start experimenting with different rim shapes and came up with this one. It is my favorite so far because it doesn't just look like a normal bowl. Something that I want to pay more attention to is to make my pottery more interesting and show my choices in the way that I shape them.
I also started work on my installation show in March. I began making egg molds on Saturday. After one failed attempt (eggs forever enclosed in plaster) I finished my mold tonight. I'm excited to make some porcelain eggs that will be spilling out of a bowl hung from over head. 

Time and Pottery

I have been doing some reading on whether or not time actually slows down in a crisis. I read about an experiment in which scientists had the test subjects fall backwards off of a 45 meter high platform. After reviewing the results this group of scientists concluded that in an emergency we have richer and more detailed memories of the event, making it seem much longer. They compare this to children remembering their summers as longer than an older person who records memories of the same amount of time. As we grow older we remember less because commonplace events are no longer memorable for us. 
I've been working on my throwing. I feel pretty out of practice since I haven't been in ceramics class since June. The top photo is of my favorite mug so far. I have now made 11 cups/mugs. I started out making the little bowl forms on the bottom but realized quickly I needed to start back at the beginning and get some practice in.
I'm going to need a lot of pottery if I'm going to be smashing some of it. I am pretty sure I am going to add a video to my installation in March. Since what I am trying to show is that I believe time is perceptual, meaning that it may change based on circumstance, I want to film the smashing of my pottery. I am planning on filming them at regular speed and then slowing the video down at the moment right before they hit the ground and then returning it to regular speed mid-way through the breaking.
I plan on casting eggs this week as well. I want to have a few dozen made from porcelain that will be spilling out of a large bowl.

Ideas for my ceramic project.

     I want to continue learning how to throw on the wheel but I have been giving some thought to the conceptual side of my ceramics pieces.
     I did a drawing series over the summer about time. I was reading about Kant and Einstein's theories of time. The drawing series was about three different theories of time. Time as perceptual, time as universal and time as relative to speed.
     The moment that I was thinking about was the moment before death. Twice in my life I experienced believing that I was going to die. Once slowly, due to an illness and once quickly, in a car accident. That moment has always intrigued me but not in the cheesy "life flashes before your eyes" way because that doesn't happen.
     The way that I want to make this work together is to sculpt liquid pouring out of the cups that I throw which is why I shot this photo as a reference. Also I want to break some of these glasses and suspend them in lucite.
     Brian showed me the work of German photographer Martin Klimas. I would like to suspend the broken pottery in the way that it began to break in and not just put it back together.

Anthony's Arm

Trying to paint a tattoo is one of the hardest things I think that I've ever attempted. To make it look like it is part of the arm and not just floating in front of it is difficult. For awhile it looked like I had ran up to someone's painting of an arm and painted on top of it. I'm glad that we did this in class because I learned a lot from it.