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.