September 26, 2012

Shoji Hamada

I love this Shoji Hamada pot for it's elegance, beauty, and form.  This piece can be broken up into three defined sections.  The rim has a nice defined edge.  The body of the pot leads your eye around the piece with his slip decoration.  Finally the tall trimmed foot to lift the tea bowl off the surface.  

Steven Hill

This Steven Hill pitcher really stands out to me for it's form and surface.  Steven has achieved a way to have atmospheric like surfaces firing in cone 6 oxidation electric kiln.  He develops a wide variety of colors by applying a primer glaze and overlaying other glazes in sections through spraying.  

Dusk Sky in Madrid, Spain 

Roberto Zenfoid

I have always admired and enjoyed the sky and the clouds my whole life.  My absolute favorite is dusk skies over water.  I hope to get these effects on a body of my work some day.  

September 19, 2012

Emily Murphy place setting

I really adore this place setting by Emily Murphy.  It is beautifully crafted, the forms all go well with each other, and the variation of wax resist lines blend together quite nice.

Ancient Greek Pottery

While working on my service bowls, I added handles or "notches" to the sides of some of them.  I have been playing with adding thin lines to the surface of my bowls to help give the viewer another focal point to look at.  The lines and patterns on this ancient Greek pot really help draw your attention away from the handle and more to the details and form of the pot.  

Judy Chicago The Dinner Party

When I think of famous place settings only one comes to mind.  The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago has over 39 place settings.  All with distinct styles and forms that coincide with each other.  

September 12, 2012

This past week I have been investigating surface techniques by the use of sprigging and stamping.  One artist I have been observing is Ron Meyers.  Ron uses a very loose technique of sprigging on his pots.  It is not until after gestural marks, carving, and manipulating the surface that you see his animals popping out at you.  Another artist I have been observing is Kristen Kieffer.  Kristen uses stamping to completely manipulate her functional forms at the “suede” stage of the clay.  The last resource I used were multiple books to study pictures of animals.  From studying the pictures I made drawings on slabs of clay, then cut it out and applied them to the surface of my pots. 

Ron Meyers

Kristen Kieffer

Cheetah photo by Chris Johns (National Geographic)

Work in Progress

For anyone that saw my last blog post, I figured I would show you some of the bowls I made for the assignment.  These bowls have not been fired and I am going to end up throwing out a lot of them.  Most of these bowls are rough drafts or sketches for me.  I ended up making a little over 50 bowls for the assignment.  It was not until the last couple that I found a form that I really liked.  In my next assignment I will make a set of 6 matching bowls, a larger serving bowl, and I will be experimenting with stamping/sprigging on some new forms.  Stay tuned for pictures and updates. 

The first 24...

 The next 24...

The final bowl that I will make a set of 6 of...

Wednesday September 5th, 2012

Our first assignment was to make 24 different finished bowls.  Within this assignment I researched a variety of different forms and styles.  For some of my tighter forms I observed Ryan J. Greenheck’s work.  After making those I started throwing some looser forms with no bottoms so I could then go in later and rework the clay by pushing, pulling, and indenting the surface.  For these bowls I was looking at Chris Gustin’s vessels and some architectural structures such as The Bird’s Nest National Stadium in Bejing, China.  

Ryan J. Greenheck Bowl

                                                           Chris Gustin Tea-bowls

The Birds Nest National Stadium

Kansas City!

I have arrived in Kansas City, MO and finished my first week of classes.  It was a very long and exhausting 20 hour drive out here, but I am so excited to finally be here.  I am looking forward to making a lot of work and really improving my skills as a ceramic artist.  I will be posting weekly on my blog about what I am focusing on in school, so stay tuned for updates and pictures.  

Moving soon

Ok so I had my last house sale that was apart of the www.chestercountystudiotour.com and it was a huge success!  Also I had another pottery sale at Hopewell Church that benefited their Beyond the Walls campaign, which also went very well.  In a little over a month I will be loading up my 89’ celica GT to travel half away across the country.  I really hope my car makes it because it is an antique but awesome nonetheless!  All I can say is I am going to miss my family, friends, and good old Chester County Pennsylvania a lot.  My huge basement apartment in my parents house has been great and it is probably the nicest set up I will have for a long time.  I have a ton of room down here and I wake up in the morning, walk to the other side of the basement, (where I have my full studio) and get to work.  It does not get any better then that at 22 years old.  I am really looking forward to Kansas City and attending the Art Institute there.  Should be interesting what kind of work I start making and how I cope with working in a much smaller space with 20-30 young talented ceramic students!  Stay tuned for what happens out in Kansas City.