Rachel Dorn Ceramic Sculpture: gears

Showing posts with label gears. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 5, 2016

First Summer 2016 Sculpture(s) in Progress (1 of 3)

finished wiggly rim selfie

Last week I was finally able to begin my first serious sculpture of 2016, after completing commission work and glazing through most of June.

one not-very-exciting thrown piece of the eventual sculpture

I threw some pieces on Tuesday and started putting them together over the next couple days. I had a fairly good idea of the basic structure of the one piece and the top of another, but the form of the pieces developed further while the thrown parts were pieced together.

the basic form in progress

I wanted to build a piece that had a large bulb-like shape on the bottom rather than a simple round base. I was thinking of the form of the piece I did for the SRAM Bike Project, way back in 2012. However, now that I look back at that piece, the forms are less directly similar than they were in my head. Regardless, I wanted to explore this bulbous base for a bike-part form again.

texture, sprigs, and chain track in progress

I wanted to incorporate bike parts into this piece as well, but I didn't want the bottom part to be plain or all bike-part-y, so I incorporated some sprigs from a mold I've had for quite a while. The mold is off a bell pepper. It's one of the biggest sprig molds I have and it allowed me to make sprigs of different sizes for this piece.

part of the chain in its track

One issue that came up in building this form is that the chain doesn't really want to bend the way I'd like to use it. I decided to put the chain "track" where I want the chain to go and manually adjust the chain later, after firing. I want the chain to curve in both dimensions. I haven't altered the chain much previously, aside from length, so this will be a new challenge...to deal with later.

texture, sprigs, and chain track

As often happens, while I am building, I got so carried away with the surface texture on this piece (and two others I was working on concurrently), that the project surface took up the bulk of my time compared to the relatively fast building of the form.

the base, formed and mostly textured

I didn't work on the projects over the long weekend, though I was a little worried about them drying too much in that time. When I came back to them today, some parts for a different piece were a little dry, but this form was fine to build on.

the opening with gear stack (left) and the neck more completely textured (right)

Today I spent my time working mostly on the neck and the top opening of this form, but I am not finished. I want the gear cassette to be prominent in the opening at the top of the form, so I plan to cut the rim a little shorter than it is in these pictures and wave the edges.

the form and texture nearly complete for the day

When I finished working on this piece today, the rim was a little too dry to move how I wanted it too, so I wet it, compressed it, and wrapped it up in plastic. Then I started on the other larger sculpture I was working on and never got back to the first one. If all goes well, I should finish building this form tomorrow. Edit: I finished building this form Wednesday.

finished wiggly rim

Thursday, January 29, 2015

Latest Gear Stack Piece

Next week my show, Mechanical Botanicals, opens at CORE Gallery in Seattle. Since this week is the last chance I have to finish work before installing this weekend, I am trying to finish a few pieces.

the new gear stack piece after bisque firing, unstacked (left) and a gear stack piece from my sabbatical

This past summer I started a new gear piece similar to some I had done during my sabbatical. I wanted to create as similar form but with a more complex base. My sculptures are inspired by plants and flowers, so I wanted to reference a stem branching or splitting from the central form.

a gear stack piece from my sabbatical

Like the earlier gear pieces, I built this form in sections, planning for gears to nestle and attach between the different ceramic segments of the sculpture.

part of the new gear stack piece after glaze firing

During the summer I built and fired the work. I started applying underglaze in the summer but wasn't ready to put the forms together until this month. Last week I started epoxying together the gears and ceramic parts.

tape holding the top on the split bulb

I used tape and armatures to help support the forms while the epoxy was setting.

a towel and box acting as an armature to support the end bulb and gear while the epoxy sets

Unfortunately, it wasn't until the entire piece was put together that I realized the unfortunately angle, placement and proportion of the smaller branching form. I am also disappointed in how straight the top section is. I may have put together the top form or forms incorrectly, but it's hard to recall what the entire form looked like, since it was hard to take pictures while also holding up the wet pieces.

The new sculpture, mostly complete

One innovation in this piece was splitting one of my bulb forms near the base so that the gear could fit inside it. The plan was good but the smaller segment warped during drying or firing and now the curve is a little more narrow and taller than the area where it needs to attach.

two sections of the split bulb, with epoxy

I used epoxy putty to fill in the seam of the two bulb pieces and painted over it. The paint color is a close match, but there are some visible brush strokes because the paint was a little thick when I applied it.

epoxy putty roughed into place

This sculpture is close to "finished," needing only another coat of paint and some gloss varnish to complete the bulb patching. However, I haven't decided if I want to include the piece in next week's show, since it didn't work out quite how I planned.

the bulb with the patched seam

Friday, July 25, 2014

New Stacking Gear Piece

Another piece I worked on during my first week of throwing was a tall stacking piece similar to ones I made for my sabbatical and the first SRAM project. I've been fascinated with the twisting, tall form divided by gears.

gear stack forms from sabbatical 2013/2014

I did a shorter, wider, and straighter version of this divided form for my first SRAM project. On that one I was more focused on added multiple bike parts. For the later pieces I was working almost directly from sketches.

SRAM Gears (top section) from 2012

I started with this form this summer because the structure is fairly simple and I could throw the parts without a lot of planning. I wanted to get started building right away. Sometimes building without much of a plan allows me to think through some ideas, concretely. I suppose it is similar to an automatic writing exercise. The goal is to get started.

sculpture in progress with large gear in place

Speaking of writing, as I have been writing about my work this summer, for various applications, it has occurred to me that with these vertical pieces, I have slightly lost sight of my intent in incorporating the bike parts. The last sabbatical pieces I built ended up being about the aesthetics of including imagery and material recycled from bicycles. What these pieces did not do was use the bicycle parts as supports in the way some of the other pieces did.

these five forms all use the supports to literally support some part of the ceramic form

Two of the first SRAM pieces use metal rods from the bikes as literal supports for the whole form or to apparently support a section of the form. The pitcher plant forms from this year and the orange flower piece with the bike pedal parts both use the bike parts to lift up flower-like sections from a separate base.

sculpture in progress with large gear in place

This summer's stacking piece is more complex that the earlier tall pieces in that I added bulbs back onto the sides and also added a second "stem" coming from the base. While I was adding the bulbs, I made a mistake and attached one too high on the form. I decided to leave it and alter the bulb form to work around the gear.

cut pod that overlaps the large gear

The bulb has a cutout section at the top on one side that will be attached after the entire form is glazed, fired and epoxied together. I haven't decided if I will camouflage the seam or leave it visible, kintsugi style.

gear in place on the wet base (notice the pod looks smooth across the top of the gear)

Of course I planned for the fit of the gears before and after firing and for making the strongest attachments between ceramic forms. The clay pieces will shrink but should still fit. Though the photo makes it look like the gear is a tight fit now, I believe I measured correctly accounting for shrinkage.

a gear stack piece made during my sabbatical, in progress in December 2013

This week I unloaded the pieces from the kiln and stacked them up, but haven't had a chance to check gear fit.

The top section doesn't fit quite right without the gear in place so I set it next to the piece.

There is still a lot of work to be done post-firing. I need to apply underglaze to all eight sections and reapply underglaze on at least five of the pieces after the second firing. Then I will spray on glaze and fire all the pieces again. After firing I can begin to put the forms together with the gears.

The eight ceramic parts of the sculpture unstacked

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