Ceramics Dinner Party
Fall 2017

For this project each artist teamed up with an international student to create a piece that represented their home country. The student I worked with was from Columbia and while he was telling me about his country, what he loved and missed or hated, we told me about the mountains and an old saying they use in Columbia about them. "2600 meters closer to the stars" After hearing this I was immediately inspired by the mountains and stars. In my first piece for this project I created the idea if a bowl that could ultimately be used for breads on the dinner table. The top edge of the bowl was created by the diamond shape of stars that doubled as the ups and downs of mountains. When glazing this piece, the international student I worked with said they would love to see bright colors since the culture in Columbia uses bright colors as well. The colors I chose were not just because they would be bright and stand out, but also because they are the colors of the Columbian flag. Going around the bowl, I also painted a small contour line of mountains in a dark brown the emphasise the mountains in Columbia more. The second piece I worked on for this project is more just for display purposes, but could also be used to lean silverware on. Throughout this piece I wanted to keep to with the idea of mountains and stars, just in a different form. I created a mountain like shape with the top being carved into to create texture. I did this to represent trees on the mountains. Once the piece is flipped over, the under side has a star at the base to keep the idea of 2600 meters closer to the stars. While glazing this piece wanted the too to be more of a neutral tone so I chose a glaze that had a clear/nude base and blue specks. The underside was glazed in the mirror blue to represent the sky and a good on the star as well as splattered across the blue to make the star pop and represent the light stars give off against the sky.

Ceramics Individual Project 

Fall 2017

For this individual project I decided to loom towards nature as my inspiration. Throughout the semester I created approximately 10 pieces from this idea, my final selection only included 5 pieces though that I thought were best fit and showed both realistic and abstracted representations on nature. The 4 pictures above show 2 pieces that I used for this project. The seashell is a realistic representation that used watercolor glazes to show pastel colors that one would see at the beach and the back at a hint of Mirror Blue to represent water from the ocean where one would find a shell this this. I added balls and strips of clay to add texture when you ran your hand over the piece. The second piece shown both realisticallyand abstractly represents flower forms. The lavender part of the figure shows more of the look of a flower from above but the out parts hold itself more as a bowl would. The blue flower on the outside more obviously shows a realistic flower attached. Another piece I worked on for this project was a round sphere that was glazed with blue specs to it. I wanted this piece to represent more of the world and the water within the earth. Wee always see water in droplets and I wanted to recreate that idea in my own way. A smaller piece for this project came about through the idea of trees. The cylinder was glazed in a brown tone, but the texture carved into the clay resembles the lines on bark. Green vines were added to mimic the color of leaves and how they come out farther from the tree via branches, thus why the vines come out further than the bark in this piece. My last piece for this project was also created through the idea of flowers, but specifically the tulip. The small bowl is created through multiple petals layering on top of one another. While glazing this piece I chose to make each petal a different color so that each petal stood out and the piece did not look as if it was all one, just as each petal on a real flower is it's own and falls on its own.

Ceramics Individual Project

Fall 2017

With this individual project I wanted to step away from building clay into forms and work on the wheel. By doing this I taught myself how to make forms of different shapes and sizes while still using the same techniques. I thought it was amazing how you could easily manipulate the clay by just adding a little pressure in one stop or by moving your hands one way or another. The reason I chose to leave these pieces unglazed is because I wanted the texture of the clay from the wheel to be prominant. I did not want color or texture in the pieces to be chamged. The clay by itself, although as ceramic artists usually add glazes to create their finished pieces, I see them as finished pieces without a glaze.

Ceramics Touch Project

Fall 2017

This project was to start building our experience in clay while also keeping in mind the idea of touch. While we were working on this project we went to The School for the Deaf and Blind and working with kids of different limits in sight with clay, helping them make their own ceramic pieces. The idea of this project was to be able to close our own eyes and feel the ceramics, the lines and textures within the pieces. The pieces I chose for my final work was decided on by the different techniques used to build and form the clay as well as the way they felt when I closed my eyes to touch them. Each of them were different from the other and made you feel them in a different way to figure out the form.