Rachel Dorn Ceramic Sculpture: a piece a day

Showing posts with label a piece a day. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Split Canvas, Mini-Sculpture Project and Bulbs

You can tell it's been a rough week when your chair breaks. Apparently director's chairs are not designed to be used as leverage for photographing work from above.

I finally finished up firing (most) of my work from last Spring's Daily Mini Sculpture Project. Making the work is a lot more fun than is glazing and firing the work. The pieces are so small that I had several shelves with a couple dozen pieces on each level. Most of the pieces had to be stilted because they were glazed all around with no specific foot or base.

pitcher plant

flossers pressed into wet clay

eating a book?

I've also been firing and under-glazing my bulbs for next year's installation. I have fired most of the 3 or so I worked on a few weeks ago. I've under-glazed about half of these.

bulbs after firing (top left has been partially under-glazed

first layer of under-glaze fired on bulbs

Thursday, September 27, 2012

First Week of Classes

The good news is that this week I added about 25% to the large sculptures I finished this summer. The bad news is I finished one. I fired it this weekend and had to take slides in the middle of the week after class. I usually take slides early in the morning when the sun is rising, but the sun is rising after I go to school now, so I had to wait until sunset.

I guess I'm pleased with the piece, though I wish I had done something surprising in the interior. You can't see from this angle, but it is just the interior of the sculpture, visible until the sculpture bends and you can't see down anymore. I may still consider some alterations.

I have a few more pieces around the studio that are at some level of finished. I hope to get them fired during the school year but I'll need to sneak in time to do so. So far meetings and class preparation has essentially exhausted all my work time and my daughter's activities, cooking dinner and cleaning enough to keep the house habitable have managed to fill almost all my excess time this week.

sculpture still needs another layer of underglaze and over glaze before firing

whistle from...maybe January

I finished up some of my mini-sculpture or one piece a day project from the past spring. I have decided not to continue this project during the fall. Instead I have a rather extensive list of things I need to get done in the studio, like glazing most of the mini-sculptures, that I will break up into smaller bites. I will still try to set aside studio time every day or most days. So far this week I spent time in the studio on the weekend and Wednesday evening.

mini-sculpture project

I've also got a few odds and ends around the studio, parts of projects that I planned to or still plan to finish. I have a show next January (2014) for which I want to make 100 small forms. I could do them during the summer but I am hoping to make some progress during the year. I started them this past summer.

leftover SRAM project clay pieces

I plan to make 100 of these guys

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Summer Studio Progress

I have been working in the studio the last few weeks, though I feel like progress is coming at a painfully slow pace. I've been in to EfCom at least 5 times this summer trying to work on my computer. Fixing one thing seems to lead to another thing going wrong, and another and another.

It's already July and I don't feel like I accomplished much of anything in the clay studio during June. I'm still finishing my first few pieces this week! (Usually I work on about 5 pieces over 2 weeks.) I have been under-glazing some of my daily mini-sculpture project pieces from this spring.

I have also started some larger pieces, as I mentioned. Below is the first one "finished". I have been working on the brain-stretching puzzle of how to incorporate my SRAM bike parts into my work. The piece below will be finished with about 5 bike parts. The sprigs on the top are "cast" from bike parts. The main challenges I face in completing the SRAM bike parts project are to account for shrinkage and to incorporate 25 different parts. Several of the pieces I have been working on this week are meant to be tests for shrinkage and fit and attachments (epoxies, etc) and to provide a test version of these mixed media forms. I don't know what will go wrong, but I have a feeling something might. I want to test the attachments at full scale before I begin the final piece so I know what might go wrong.

I've done a little testing. This mini-sculpture (before firing) uses some random parts we had around the house. I tried to incorporate extra space for the metal pieces to account for shrinkage. It will also be a small test for glaze and epoxy.

sprigs made from SRAM parts

Before the bike part project came along, I was already planning to experiment with mixed media, specifically glass. The small piece below incorporates a glaze drip from a high temperature kiln. The piece with the blue bits incorporates broken beer bottle glass. I've already fired the smaller piece. The glass didn't change much. I expect the shard glass to melt into less sharp edges.

Pre-School Project

One other small project that has taken a bit of time is my pre-school class project. Last summer I visited my daughter's class to "do" a clay project with them. It was so much fun, I want to do it again this year, but I want to do a different project. After discussing possibilities with my daughter, we decided that noisemakers or rattles would be easiest and most fun. We haven't set a date yet, but we have plans.

my test bell project

I will throw a bunch of small forms like these below. They are open at the bottom and may be closed or open at the top. They are pretty quick to throw off the hump. The kids can pick one or we can give them to them.

bell tops just thrown

The kids can then make and attach a bottom (and top as needed) and drop in a bunch of small balls of clay. They then close the piece (my daughter's version below had an open top through which she dropped little balls of clay after she had attached a bottom slab) and decorate the shape. I'll keep the clay pretty wet so they can stamp into it or add shapes. My daughter wants me to let the kids make sprig molds, but I don't think it will work. Since I won't be able to get the sprigs fired before their project, they won't be able to use them and won't understand why they were made. I might have some sprigs available for them to use and explain how they were made. Last summer their teachers helped with the project at the table and they could help with the sprigs too.

My daughter's bell

After the bells are made and decorated (I'll also brings underglazes for color application) I'll remind the kids to poke a hole in them, take them home and fire them for the kids. They won't rattle while we are doing the project (wet clay doesn't) but they will when I return them.

Another option we considered for the kids project, attaching handles and decorating mugs. But this is more work for me and much more of a kit-project than a project where they kids actually learn something interesting. Besides, noisemakers are more fun to use.

Friday, June 15, 2012

Buffer Week

This week is my buffer week, the week between the end of the academic year and the start of my summer studio time. I like to reserve this week for non-work. This week isn't for working at school, for grading or for working in my studio. Sadly, it has almost come to an end and I have done too much of all three prohibited activities. I feel the summer slipping away, already.

Sunday I fired a kiln while I unpacked art booth equipment from my car. I didn't get around to actually putting much of it away until Monday and have barely finished now. I spent time at school helping to take down the student exhibition at Larson Gallery and cleaning up after the last firing in the clay studio. I uncovered both my desk and home and my desk at work, but, sadly, I still have to actually deal with the stacks of paper that are now sorted and awaiting filing, finishing or other attention.

I made some little pieces, in part to try out some clay that was given to me in "payment" for borrowing my wheel for a few hours.

During June Art Fest people seemed particularly interested in little critters with eyes and legs, so I made a few more. This was about all my attention span could handle.

I made a few little critters with rattles inside, since my daughter thinks the rattle pieces are the best. She helped me pack and put away some of my work. These pieces seem to take her the most time, since she insists on rattling them for a long time before she will actually wrap them or put them away.

I halfheartedly returned to my neglected box of inspiration hints from my mini-sculpture project. This is a "turtle" from a dream I had. I've been reading a book about a woman who is in disguise as a man. She ties something around her chest before donning men's clothing and I keep picturing actual ties as the binding material, though I don't believe that's what she used. My memory of the dream is a little fuzzy, but I or someone in the dream was in disguise. it wasn't a turtle, or a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, as this one appears to be (from this angle) but the sculpture turned into a turtle.

For my birthday my mother-in-law picked up some odds and ends from Seattle Pottery for me, including a "dragon scaler"--evidenced above on this strange thing and on the TMNT--and some half circle stamps and a mini clay extruder (below).

After I unloaded my first home studio firing of 2012, I arranged my 80 mini-sculptures on the newly cleaned and replaced table and started sorting them (for fun, while I talked with the woman who was using my wheel). These sculptures above are the most irregular in form. Some are my more literal translations of an inspiration hint, others are inspired by forms I've made before or something I was actually seeing while I made the sculpture.

The pieces below are probably my least imaginative sculptures, though there are elements within this group that I like. Several towards the back simply annoy me and I wish I hadn't fired them. I only had one piece in the group that had some sort of structural instability. Nothing exploded in the firing, which means I was careful and consistent in putting in an air hole, but one little guy lost his spines. This may have been one I made outside and didn't use slip to attach the spines in the first place. Dropping the piece after the firing likely didn't help.

This last set is of those pieces I am most happy with, they have more complex forms or surface decorations, including multi-part forms attached together and a combination of hollow circles and other attachments on the surfaces. Included here is also my "flux capacitor." my "egg" with writing inside and my very first mini-sculpture project piece.

The pieces are all bisque, which makes them less attractive, in my estimation, but soon I will be able to start under-glazing them. (I spent yesterday cleaning the dead flies and year's detritus from the counter where I usually do all my underglazing.) For several pieces have plans that require the work to be fired and/or glazed before the idea is complete.

Monday, June 11, 2012

Mini Sculpture Project: The end of the 80 days

The school year is officially over, grades are in (though I got my first post-grading e-mail asking whether I'd forgotten to grade something) and my summer has begun. I'm taking about a week to recuperate from this weekend's windy June Art Fest at Chalet Place in Yakima. My studio is a disaster, since I took down all my shelves and tables to be part of the June Art Fest booth setup. I'm going to attempt to put it all back today.

Last week I didn't do much in the way of mini-sculpture making. I took some clay to June Art Fest but there was too much to do and too many people coming through to leave me time to work. Maybe next year.

What I do have is some pictures of work made before finals/packing/grading week and one piece made Sunday.

Really, I have no idea what I was thinking with this one. I think I made it while waiting for a kiln to finish firing at the start of finals week.

This one too. I used a school stamp (actually a stamp I made for my daughter's day care clay demonstration but then brought to school and left for my students. This one is smaller than most of my pieces.

Coincidentally, I pulled "Renee Adams" as my inspiration hint on Sunday or maybe Tuesday after visiting the Ellensburg Artist Home Tour. This is (sort of) a mushroom like the ones she had on her wall in her studio. Her's had all sorts of cool textures on the surfaces, soft and fuzzy.

underside of mushroom

shell (in the kiln)

another shell, not in the kiln

Sunday's contribution (during nap time while I watched Bones for the first time in months).

Lookie, I loaded a kiln! As of last weekend when I loaded the kiln, I had 82 pieces. I have maybe 85 today.

During June Art Fest I sold quite a few small pieces. I priced them pretty low, between $10 and $25 for pieces this size and smaller. I think people who didn't feel they could afford big work still wanted something and this was within their price range. I also sold a lot of "critters," my mini-sculptures with legs and/or faces. I had been thinking of this mini-sculpture project as mostly a me-thing. I wanted the satisfaction of making stuff during the school year and I wanted to challenge myself to make stuff following arbitrary rules (inspiration hints) and I wanted to keep my hand in a a bit while I couldn't make more complex or larger sculptures. I hadn't really been thinking sales.

I also realized this weekend that my mind-set is different from the last time I did art fairs (2005/2006). Then it was a significant part of my income. Now it isn't. My motivation in making the stuff isn't sales (though its hard to say how much it was in 2006) and I realized I would make the stuff regardless of whether it would sell. Selling now is more a way of making space for the new stuff.

Did I mention it was windy this weekend?

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