Blog Neglect... Oops!

With the hectic end to the summer session and a busy beginning to fall, I have badly neglected my blog. I wanted to share some images of a few of my final pieces form the summer. I am still working out figuring out how to photograph decently at home...

Anne Marie Laureys

At crits this morning I mentioned an artist that Heather should check out, Anne Marie Laureys who works with manipulation of the vessel, similar to one of the bottles she is showing in the WIP show. It was hard to get images of her work that were downloadable, so this is not the most appropriate piece. I especially like her recent work that is very thin, fleshy colored, and very folded and twisted. There is a very human quality to her pieces. Here is a link to her website where she has many more images of how she manipulates thrown forms.

Full kiln

Here's hoping!

Troublemakers...

Papers and such

Researched some sweet artists for my paper in Body and Space class. I am writing about artists who are successful at creating a proprioceptive response to their sculpture. The first two images are from Tiziana Bendall-Brunello. They are so delicate and light, yet full of movement and emotion. The second two images are from Brad Taylor. I can feel mass and weight of gravity just by looking at them. Although the style of each of these artists could not be more different, I think that they are very powerful in their ability to create physical empathy.

Nishida Jun

Fascinating technique of excavating from massive messy porcelain creations to get his sculptures. I'm sure J & L wouldn't mind if I did this to their kilns:

"Nishida has used a crane to "salvage" his work, and had to break the kiln door (and the kiln walls) in order to remove his creation, which had expanded during firing. In other words, Nishida's muscular physique, a remnant of his rugby days, is needed to bust open a kiln, or to shovel his way from the mess of feldspar that had leaked this way and that, almost swallowing the inside of his kiln as if some symbiotic monster. Nishida is testing the limits of his kiln, and is testing the limits of his own physical strength."

Taken from this website.

Crits and things...

Quote from my crit with Gerard Brown today regarding my frustration with working with porcelain:
"Don't give up yet. In true stalker fashion, you have to make it love you."

Something to think about while working, Richard Serra's list of verbs.

Trial and ERROR

Porcelain - you fickle creature. You got me again.

Storm King and Dia Beacon

At Storm King I loved seeing Ursala Von Rydingsvard's and Isamu Noguchi's sculptures and how they interacted with the viewer as well as how they fit into the landscape they were set in.

At Dia Beacon, my favorite piece was Richard Serra's Union of the Torus and the Sphere, which was surprising for me since I do not typically feel a connection to large steel sculptures in that way. However, it has inspired me to make some Richard Serra-esque forms that may find themselves included in a sculpture of my own.

Philadelphia Museum of Art

In our first week here, I took advantage of free admission to UArts students at the PMA. There was still a ceramics exhibition up from NCECA and I very much enjoyed Walter McConnell's unfired piece at the PMA. Check out the time elapsed video of the piece being built in the museum. I am excited for him to visit the school later this summer.

Other objects I became fascinated with at the PMA were Pate-sur-pate pieces in which porcelain slip was painted on in thin layers over a colored clay body to give a transparent and varied surface decoration to the pottery. I tried a very dumbed-down test of this and am excited to see the results after firing and figure out if the technique could be useful in some way in my own work.

ART.

Having been officially in Philadelphia for 2 weeks, I have had some great opportunities to see incredible inspiration. Since I can't figure out how to manipulate where I add photos into this blog, I will do separate posts for each of the museums.

Start of summer studio!

Summer session is back. Its great to see what everyone has been working on for the past few months. Here is some of my work from the Spring semester - photos courtesy of Andy Heisey. (Thank you!)