POTS

POTS?!? Its kind of a funny sounding word.  In the Spring of 2009 The Kansas City Art Institute Ceramics Department had a spring exhibition featuring a ton of pots or vessels or what ever you would like to call them. Click here to see images from the exhibition.  There was a real nice range of work featured by students from all levels of the program; Sophomores, Juniors & Seniors. The work represented in the exhibition was created using a variety different processes and techniques.  Eric Wolever & Ryan Fletcher used plaster as the starting point for their form language whereas Matthew Jorgensen & Mariko Brown utilized the potters wheel for their forming techniques.  The use of digital technology was also present with Keith Simpsons pieces.  Keith designed his work using Rhino(3D imaging software) and created prototypes that were "printed" using epoxy.  The printed prototypes were then used to make plaster molds in order to create slip cast replicas.  The vessels in the exhibition represented a nice range of aesthetics; there seemed to be diverse perspectives & point of view within the work.     

Minoan Pottery

Pottery is a craft that is practiced and is further explored in every culture. The knowledge of pottery is a sign of organization. This process encapsulates the intention of making improvements and involvement of culture. Making pottery involves experimental encounters with ways to engineer techniques into elaborate forms. There is a structure that is always constant in the organized method of transforming clay. Even when uses are different for regions that practice pottery, the objects are made out of clay; these objects capture an essence of culture and knowledge that is being practiced in the process of creating. Objects express an individuals’ perspective, demonstrate methods, teachings, and a perspective of life. Pottery can be described as a process with a variety of methods. An interesting quality about pottery is that it is a process that puts clay through a constant change in the presence of a man that is going through change as a well. The beginning of Functional pottery and modern day pottery mysteriously has survived the generations of change in the lives of man. Pottery has expanded in knowledge but has managed to remain in the same content of purpose for mankind. Pottery in different cultures, locations, and eras has affected current and future generations. For example, the Japanese had a philosophy of learning from other cultures and transforming what already existed.

Wake Up

Yesterday there was a giant snapping turtle behind work where I take my hourly smoke breaks. Being from Washington state I had never actually seen one of these amazing creatures. I pulled a stick from the mud and wiggled it in front of his giant head and he (or she) responded by snapping his beak tightly around the stick; releasing only after I was able to pull the weight of his body to the surface of the water.

I spent the rest of the day pondering the battles that would ensue between a giant turtle and various other creatures if they were both the size of buildings - like Godzilla, and decided to name the turtle Gamera. As I closed my eyes to sleep - while frantically pondering the nature of the universe and the weight of the obligations that come to term at the end of a semester - I remembered that things are not as heavy as they seem and fell into a dream.

It’s night in the city. The falling rain coats the darkness with a sheen as yellow lights of distant hotel room windows reveal the shady behavior of shadow puppets behind them. I move quickly down an alley and past a car dealership. There are two giant inflatable monsters standing atop the building, swaying left and right in the wind as though they are walking in slow motion toward me. King Kong is holding a sign that says “SALE!” upside down and backwards. Godzilla just stands, watching, wearing a pink brassier. She is a novelty, a rather large one but I imagine her gaze traveling through me with such energy that my bones begin to glow. I hear footsteps running up from behind me at an intensifying pace; it is too much for me to stand in her gaze so I run back to the alley. The footsteps that I’m running from disappear beneath the wake of my own. Just as my stride ceases, my pursuers do as well. I stand in the dark of a locked doorway, trying to catch my breath. It is silent, save my beating heart. I see a movement in the shadows directly across the alley. From behind a dumpster, a hand lifts a chunk of metal the size of my head until it is pointed at the only part of my body still capable of making sound. I am silent and motionless for what seems an eternity. The barrel blows a couple of kisses my way, I fall face first into a puddle, and blow two bubbles. My body fades away and in its place is an outline of chalk. The world around it seems to shrink but the outline remains constant until it swallows the world, the universe, infinity.

furoshiki

The Japanese have always been particular when it comes to detail. Even when wrapping a gift - something that may be menial even - every detail is brought into consideration. I am learning about many different styles of Japanese wrapping this semester, one specifically which is called furoshiki seems to be the most versatile. The base of every wrapping is a single, square piece of fabric. There are many different folds and knots that can get one varying results for each type of thing they are packaging. Bottles, books, watermelon, etc all have a unique way to be wrapped. 

The best part is that not only is the item within a gift, but the wrapper as well. It can be obviously reused for a plethora of things - headscarves, bags, or just a simple splash of colour in a room. Furoshiki is becoming a big hit lately for being a personal eco-friendly way to carry any item. Paper gift wrapping just gets crumpled and thrown away, and plastic bags are seen as a plague now. 

In Japanese culture the wrapping can be very very particular. When taking an item to be wrapped you would tell the person a few things about your relationship to the person recieving it: for example, if they are older, of a high stature, related to you or not, etc. Each of these things would be taken into thought, and the gift would be wrapped accordingly so as to not offend the recipient, but compliment adn respect them. When I mention this to someone, I usually get a response of "gee - that seems like they are going to far too much trouble to wrap a gift." The thing though is that like the tea ceremony, it is an art that most westerners cannot understand(except in the name of eco-friendliness). For the Japanese though, this is another form of art in adn of itself. To make everything in life beautiful and have deep meaning. 

Musings on an Internship

New work

Studio space

A drawing for her personal lithophane work, cups thrown

Jewelry waiting to be sold

Cara Long is a local artist who graduated a few years ago from the ceramics department at KCAI. She makes her own personal work as well as ceramic jewelry. Her business, Sweet Mud Clay Works, brings her technical knowledge, personal aesthetic, and ambition together to create translucent porcelain earrings and necklaces. 

This semester I have had the pleasure of being Cara's intern and have benefited from receiving the knowledge she has gained from her work. I have so far helped to make new jewelry, research and seek new places to sell her jewelry, followed her to where her work is already being sold, and been introduced to the people with whom she works. She also has shown me her blog, documentation, catalogues, cover letters, post cards, business cards, etc., and shown me how she has created them. All in all, I feel that this internship has definitely been beneficial if I decide to pursue this path after graduating. 

mmmm slippery

Little inspiration for more texture! Holy Jesus I love it! These pieces were made by Erika Monique. The layers upon layers of coils are very pleasing to my eyes. I just wanna touch the work! And not only is it wonderfully textured!! It's also Paper clay!! mmmm I like. But what i do not like is her use of glazes. Not so pleasing in combination with the texture.

Cameras!

You may have noticed some cameras hanging out in studio. Well im making them for the Kansas City FilmFest award ceremony. It's an internship that is sort of set up like a commission. I decided to make really old time cameras for them to show/ preserve the history of their industry's technology. Plus, i think they look more fun and interesting than the digital cameras made today. As i keep making these they become more warped and twisted, in a way to show the abondoned ways of making films with these practically extinct cameras. I'm going to give them lots of color and bring these old cameras back to life, and hopefully gain them some recognition because the film industry wouldn't be what it is today without the development of these cameras.

http://kcfilmfest.org/

1. a desire or ambition to achieve something

Formally, the piece I plan on making will be composed of 4x6” translucent porcelain boxes, each of which are individually lit and linked to an infrared sensor that detects the slightest motion or interruption in heat between the viewer and wall. While I’m still looking into material costs, and construction technicalities/presentation options, the final product will attempt to function as fine art, interior design, and post World War I minimalist architecture. Its lack of color  will casually lend itself to any interior space and represent the materialistic qualities of porcelain. This interior façade of porcelain will potentially interrupt the flow of traffic during an exhibition. This in part, because the lights will go on whenever an individual steps in front of the piece. When they move away, so do the lights. The porcelain in combination with the shape of the objects, and the presentation will aid my comment on the frequently overlooked realm of concept within clay art. The nothingness of this wall will respond irreverently to pedestal ceramics and sculpture. Some artists I’ve researched are Yves Klein and specifically his philosophy of exhibiting the void and selling zones of empty space. On top of this, the work is my minimized response to Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe’s idea of “Less is More.” The posted video of Radiohead exemplifies on a much larger scale, what kind of experience I plan to hopefully accomplish both visually and physically. 

Homes and Altars

Last semester I focused on nostalgia and longing through images of my family and post cards. This semester I am trying to find my way out of the two-dimensional world of tile and into free standing three-dimensional sculpture. Coming from a painter's background, it is surprisingly difficult for me to think three-dimensionally, especially after a semester's work in flat tile. 

Right now I am trying to find an appropriate next step in my search to understand my past and my nostalgia for it. These architectural pieces are my bridge to that comprehension. They are representations of early renaissance frames, with additions of architectural remembrances of my home from my childhood. The idea that I'm thinking about is that of homes, especially past homes, which tend to fill people with a reverence long after they have left them. 

The Brain

The brain is a workspace designed by Oska architects as a place of inspiration for a film maker client.  The layout is based loosely on the form of a garage as a birthplace for innovative ideas.  What i enjoy about the space is the obvious encouragement to sit or pace and mull over thoughts.  And who would have known that the theoretical perfection of a glass box only needed books and a piano to become livable to a human? I'll take two, please.

The Green Chair Project

I've been sitting on a collection of photographs that I took with my friend Mose Andre in the summer of 2002. The project was simple in premise: acquire an object from a thrift store and see how many different people we could photograph interacting with it. This evolved into a three day project of hauling a crappy green chair around the beautiful city of Spokane Washington, the results were well over a hundred portraits that reveal an unbiased sample of culture from the heart of the Inland Empire; we are no more than the sum of our parts.

fong choo

I went to Fong Choo's workshop at red star studios a few weekends ago. Watching Fong work was an incredible experience, and I absorbed an immense amount of information from him. I find that a lot of potters want to be secretive with their glazes, recipies, and techniques sometimes, but Fong is very open. Almost every other thing he was doing was a new tidbit to use in studio. His candid attitude made the workshop very enjoyable. I even had someone ask me how I could sit watching one thing for so long(two days in a row even), but really I was learning so much that the time flew by.

He started many philisophical talks about what all of us in the room might do if we found someone had taken our works and had them mass-produced; taking less time and money, and selling them for more. His attitude was that if someone started making "fong choo pots" that he would simply proceed onto the next thing, and leave the imitator in the dust. 

His attitude towards critique is also very genuine. He told us many times, "If you come into my studio, and tell me that my work sucks. I'm not going to tell you to get out, but ask why." He went through some of the gallery work at Red Star with us, and had an open critique about many pieces concerning spout placement, general shape, and lids of the teapots that were displayed. The workshop was not just a view into Fong's technique and way of working, but how he teaches as well. It was a very insightful experience, and I hope to study with Fong one day as his student, and not merely a looker-on.

First friday at the Belger

First Friday at the Belger featured the artwork of Robert Stackhouse, a K.C.A.I. graduate. These extremely large prints were water colored and then fixed on to canvas to be displayed. Most of the works included one of two major themes, A snake that he found in the 60's, and nautical themes inspired from a decrepid row boat he bought off a poor boy. Robert also builds large temporary sculptures to give him something to paint on. One of these large scaffolding type passage ways was erected on the campus of K.C.A.I. for two years while Stackhouse attended school there in the 1990's. I was pleased to have been able to see this show on the last night it was open, my favorite piece was the ice skeleton, a print that was inspired by a story Stackhouse read in National Geographic.

The Potter's Tea Party - With a Workshop by Fong

On Friday, February 6 I attended the opening reception of Red Star Studios biannual show "The Potter's Tea Party". This show features the work of a variety of artists from all over the country. This show celebrates each artists' individual interpretation of the tea ceremony and its accompaniments. Some of my personal favorites include the work of Sam Chung, Jennifer Allen, Linda Christen, Gay Smith, Malcolm Davis and Elizabeth Lurie.

In addition to a great new show, Fong Choo also presented a two - day workshop for Red Star Studios. Fong Choo is a native of the Republic of Singapore and is inspired by his Chinese heritage and the tradition of Yixing pottery. He is currenlty a parttime professor of ceramics at Bellarmine University in Loiusville, Ky and a fulltime studio potter.

Fong Choo specializes in the miniature teapot form. These teapots are often no larger than 5x5 inches. While these teapots are small in scale, their whimsical nature and the attention to detail immediately engage the viewer. Fong demonstrated several of the miniature teapot forms for us. He throws quickly and with very soft porcelain. He does all of his altering when the piece is freshly thrown. He uses his own handmade tools to do all of these alterations and when attaching the handles and feet.

During the first day of the workshop he threw a total of nine mini teapots and finished five of them by the end of the day. He also showed us examples of some of his more "functional" work and threw a larger teapot, mug and bowl. I found it very interesting to learn that he trims the bottom of his bowls and even his mini teapots then throws a coil foot after the trimming process is complete. In addition to the large quantity of work demoed, he also discussed his business philosophies with us. Fong Choo originally majored in business before deciding to major in art. It seems that his business experience has played a large role in his success as a full time studio potter.

POTS POTS POTS!!! (Click Here For SlideShow)

So this semester I get to dream of all the nice forms I want to make and all the different ways I can make them. A few things I did from last semester have carried over. One: Im going to try to make a nice cone 10 super white that is reliable. Two: I love slip casting. I love the endlessness of the forms that can be made and the consistency of casting. And I will be trying my hand at the plaster wheel this year as well.
But fret not, for I am a potter at heart. My wheel work is my number one right now and I am definately relying on that for a good variety of forms and experimentation. Also, as for my wheel work, I am working on my ability to make a consistent, strong form more than just once. I feel like this is important for a number of obvious reasons.