My independent project is the project that has been under construction for a couple months now. It’s a representation of my dog, Roxy, in a smaller scale. I didn’t wanted just a sculpture with empty space, therefore I made holes on top of the belly to make it into a piggy bank. It has both utilitarian uses and aesthetic purposes.

The head was a combination of  a pinching pot to form the head and a small sculptural wall to shape the snout. The body was a cylindrical shape that was molded to a more organic form. The limbs were thick, long slabs in order for it to balance appropriately on the body.

The glaze was applied recently to embellish the sculpture. I applied many layers to make for sure the red earthen-ware color wouldn’t show after the final firing. I did made a mistake and applied too much layers on the snout and eyes, thus not having the intended fade away of the black color.

I am communicating the everlasting memories created with your pet. It’s a simple statement that even when your pet physically is away, the loving memories will always be there.

During the sculpturing process, I showed my teacher and my peers for feedback. Feedback on if the snout looks anatomically correct and if the body was proportionate to the head.

The next steps is to document my entire process in photos of the clay project that took months to complete. I have to also photograph the artwork with a simple backdrop.

Lo and behold, my newest artistic creation, the cookie jar :3! This is my first time using the new method of building with exposed coils. This allowed an intricate and amazing exterior of a 3D pattern while the inside can be as smooth as a baby’s bottom. At first I didn’t plan on making a cookie jar; I was just planning to create a cylindrical vase of some sort with twisting coils. But after deciding to apply texture to the coils, they started to look like the chewy candy known as Twizzlers. I’ve decided to still make the form cylindrical as it was the easiest start for a first timer like me. I wrapped twisting coils and spirals onto a cardboard tube with ceramic wrap on it and started to form a distinct pattern. I already had practice with applying clay onto cardboard shapes, so this part was just developing ways I could do it more efficiently like applying more pressure onto the clay.

While recreating Liz Zlot Summerfield interesting method, I was amazed to find out that I didn’t need to score the slab before conjoining them. Most slab building techniques requires dry shapes to be scored and proportionally positioned to create the form. This technique used softer and wetter clay, requiring no scoring at all as the clay could easily stick to each other. This technique also used one base template to make one piece of slab that could be shaped to make a form without any cracks. Although this soft slab construction have many differences compared to other slab building techniques, all slab building usually requires the slab to be beveled before conjoined.

Liz Zlot Summerfield’s term of “asking” the clay to form without cracking refers to her knowing that the clay is going to go through a lot of pressure when bent. Therefore, she hopes to not get cracks by using really wet clay and bending carefully. It’s almost like “asking” the clay or crossing your fingers that this bending won’t cause any cracks. She also uses the term “coaxing” in reference to the meaning of (persuasively) pushing someone to do something. In this context, she needs to give a slight push to the clay to kind of fit it into the curvy form she wishes. She’s “coaxing” the clay to slouch and make a bendy curve. At the end, Summerfield mentions how some forms “seem more creamer than sugar“. She uses a kind of phrase that clay artists would understand. When sculpting, slight differences in the form of the clay help decide what this clay is leaning more towards. Some may seem more in a slimmer shape to be a creamer or a sugar.

Liz Zlot Summerfield’s artworks convey a sense of balance due to the symmetrical process lines she decided to keep. Her form is curvy, allowing a hill-shape movement on the form. Overall, her sense of unity based on the floral line patterns, lighter and softer colors, and curvy form expresses a harmonically peaceful tone.

Upon being tasked with recreating Liz’s form using the same method, I followed her example of using the same kind of template that shortens towards the top, but I made my template proportionally larger. I carefully traced and cut out the slab and went forward to beveling the correct sides. I did bevel the correct sides, but then forgot to bevel on the underside. Strangely that didn’t make much differences on the final outcome, but did made it harder to conjoin all the sides together. After letting the clay harden a tiny bit, I decided to do something completely different from what Liz did. I decided to slowly coax the top parts of the slab to close in on each other, concealing the top. Then I flipped the form upside down and pushed down on the base, causing a “sink-hole effect” to take place. Now the bottom was the top and the top was the bottom.

If I were to redesign the template, I would create a circular base and a more curvy side to create more appealing process lines and to really challenge myself. I wouldn’t know if it would actually work or not.

I found myself embraced in the loving essence of pottery once again. A higher level of Ceramics in which I create my own portfolio. But here is the first monstrosity I have trouble slaying every year; the bLoG pOsT. Not to complain about these behemoths, but my past interactions with them have been horrendous. I ponder if this year would be different or a repeat of fatal years…

Express

How do ceramic artists tell stories? Find an artwork and explain how the artist communicates with the viewer.

Found one. I’ve wandered upon this majestic beauty while skimming through a Ceramic Magazine. I don’t remember which one beheld this artwork. And it irritates me more so that I haven’t included a caption referring back to the artist who created it. Although I apologize for not finding the artist to give credit to, I just want to explain how this artist told his/her story. But first, I want to portray my personal reaction for this piece. This is an abstract artwork. The subject isn’t definite, as it can be perceived in many ways. My perspective of the artwork is a knight in shining armor, positioned in the cliche hero stance. The artist communicated this artwork to me with the material and form used to create the artwork. Knights are usually rough and hardened in battle; thus the material reflects that segment with a harder and shinier material. The artist also tells their story with the form. Although not exact in every angle, the model has the same silhouette like a knight in shining armor.

In what ways can ceramic artists encourage a direct interaction with viewers?

Ah hello happy flute player! I see the artwork has encouraged a direct interaction with his/her viewers; just look at those smiling eyes! But the intention that the ceramic artist created to encourage a direct interaction was in the way how personal it looks to the viewers. With the human in a sitting position and his hands lowering the flute, he seems ready to play you a song. The mood portrayed in the simple artwork itself encourages a more joyful tone with the viewer. Since this piece is a representational artwork, its more direct when viewers gaze at it, allowing the interaction of tone to be simplified and not complicated.

Envision

What artworks did you observe that helped inspire your ideas. Be specific in describing how they influenced your planning.

I apologize but I can’t actually answer this question accurately. In regards of at least trying in my best way to answer this, I have to say my ideas was aspired from reality. I can’t actually claim that there was an artwork I observed that inspired me. But I will describe how an event influenced my planning when coming up with my idea. I was moving. I was moving to another house not too far from here due to rental problems that were occurring. And one of the new rules to this new house I was moving into was that there were to be no pets allowed. This would allow the house to stay in proper conditions (as this was another rental home). We had a dog; a mix breed of a boxer and Labrador. Once realizing I would have to leave my dog, it inspired me to make an artwork in remembrance to her. I wanted to create an artwork that reflected how she loved to have belly rubs.

What ideas for forms or stories did you consider before making a decision? What ideas are you still considering?

And this is where I contemplated the forms I would construct. My first idea was a statue of my dog on its back, ready for some belly rubs. I had also considered pepper and salt shakers, as you’ll be grabbing around the stomach, like a belly rub. But after further consideration, that seemed a bit inappropriate where the dog would be lifted in the air. Another option was the dog painted on a ceramic frame, but I found myself not too enthusiastic towards that idea. I finally decided to do a statue. I am no longer considering towards any other ideas, and is committed to pulling this idea all the way through.

Observe

How do life experiences influence the way you relate to art?

Life experiences are crucial when observing artwork. They shape how we perceive the artwork, and how it makes us feel. It makes us think back to that experience and makes us remember how we feel. Not only does the maker makes us feel again, I think we make the artwork enhanced in our own way. Emphasis on “make”. For instance, the artwork above portrays a wolf ready to gobble up its prey. Likely it will invoke fear into most people, as once in everyone’s lifetime we felt inferior or fearful of a greater monster. But if someone else had a life experience of almost starving to death, the person may want to unconsciously encourage the wolf to not die and gobble up the hare.

How does a viewer “read” an artwork?

Viewers can “read” an artwork in two ways. One way is how the eye moves. If the person normally reads from up to down and left to right, they will unconsciously observe or “read” the artwork in the same way, if there was movement in the artwork. But a viewer “reads” the tone of the artwork the same way as a book. The details encompass the main idea and propel the effect higher. So if the effect were to be a depressing tone, then the viewer would be able to sense it by reading the details in the book or the small details in an artwork. Although books may have alliteration and other sound effects that can leave a soft or harsh tone, colors on artworks do the same. Dark and bright colors could be paired together to signify a harsher separation from the opposite side or complimentary colors could wind together to give a steady flow for the viewer to “read”.

I am in Ceramics 3. Three quality years spent with my hands in clay. My first final blog post was extensively long and detailed. With the time presented in front of me, I expect myself to complete this entry with smaller amounts of writing, but with the same thorough amount of detail. I must say if I compare these artworks to my first year’s artwork, I can see significant change in growth. Thus this entry is focused primarily on growth over the year(s). I will identify key aspects of growth in my artwork and discuss what message the artwork illustrates.

Schrödinger’s Kat is the first biggest project done this year. It’s process was new to me as I have decided to do something a little different, expecting better results. I have unconsciously followed an old advice I have given; “Don’t be afraid to explore, take risks, and get your hands dirty, because confidence is the key that will allow growth to sprout from inside.” I had confidence specifically in my “potato-building”, the method of combining the lips of two pinched bowls, and explored a little with potatoes. I observed the structure of a cat’s sitting position. It had what looked like two humps stacked on top of each other. Therefore I decided that two potatoes stacked on top of each other would accurately portray the structure of a cat.

As seen in this picture, two potatoes would obviously tumble under the pressure of gravity, and so I quickly created and inserted two front legs for the cat. I’ve explored something new and successfully created an identifiable creature out of it. My problems didn’t come until I was sculpting the skeleton out of it. That’s when a catastrophe occurred.

The clay substance was drying quickly. While sculpting an “exoskeleton” layer for the cat, I accidentally nudged too hard, and the left front leg snapped off. This was particularly challenging, since the clay was hardening to leather-dry and proved more difficult to attach clay too. The reattachment process took time, slip, and needling. Like stitching a wound back together, I had managed to put more weight on the other arm, as I “stitched” the other arm back on. Huge amounts of slip was useful.

The bear is a definitive example of growth in my skills as a ceramic artist. It’s through learning of a past mistake that I had learned how to properly assert eyes into a ceramic piece. Last year, I had mistakenly missed the step of asserting eyes into my human figure. Therefore, this project I knew how to correctly insert eyes. In this project, I did receive excellent feedback from another artist on the shape of a bear’s nose. She drew the correct form of it, and showed me the difference between a pig’s nose and a bear’s nose. Differing from earlier in the year, I have went out to get positive feedback on how to refine my ceramic artwork.

The side project up above is an extent of my adoration of pottery. This was a small side project not instructed by a teacher, and it was curious to use a slightly different clay and to put my skills to the test of replicating a 2D game character. At one point, my little brother joined along, and that was a challenge in itself to properly teach a younger kid the techniques of pottery.

The dragon project is no doubt the project I would redo, mostly due to the odd colors and pattern the underglaze portrays. The shades of darkness was too bleak for the sudden popping change of the bright colors. It would have been the wiser of me to use wax to help with the precision of the cloud’s lines and the scales of the dragon. The updated version would have brighter colors and less black. It would show more of the Mother Dragon and the baby would be out of the shell. I also plan to make the base sturdier in order for it to be less troubling to hang up on a wall.

I assume my dear audience, this will be my very last blog post excluding my final blog post. It has been a tricky adventure posting these meticulous, but content blog posts. In this post, I will portray my last set of pottery projects, chat about my three-year experience, and ponder about taking more pottery classes in college. But I will dearly miss this spontaneous class, memories, and a lovable and unpredictable teacher. This has been my most spontaneous and colorful class to date. But I realized that growing up and living for more, means leaving the things you love dearly. The experiences. memories, and the slippery feeling of moist clay splattering a portrait on your hands. So without further ado, have fun reading!

During one of my depressive episodes, a friend invited me to ice cream and to her house. She really wanted to cheer me up and since she knew I liked pottery and clay immensely, she let me play with some clay she had. I made a silly little character. Then she said I could bring home the clay since she rarely ever uses it. Bless her heart. The next day I decided to do a little side ceramic project for my own personal enjoyment. I don’t write fan fiction, but rather artistically create characters in different stances. As this was my first side project, obviously I thought to take it slow and easy. I have been a fan of Kirby for so long, so I decided to create 3-dimensional figures of it. Kirby is a Nintendo side-scroll role-playing game, in which you take this little pink ball on a little adventure swallowing cute little creatures and inhibiting their abilities. Although their visuals are aimed for kids, harder modes are present to challenge an older population. That’s why I adore the game. It’s body state is simple; a small ball, 4 thumb-like clay for limbs, and a smile. Although it’s swallowing stance provides an open mouth, its design was still simple. I did had trouble with Kirby’s enemy, Marx. He’s a bit more complicated especially in his eyes and face, but I was able to do it somewhat accurate. His Jester hat gave me the most trouble, as his body size was really round. In order to fix this problem, I’ve decided that the back wasn’t a part of the center of attention, and decided to let the hat slouched towards the back. Although I don’t presently have the image represented, its fairly simple to just imagine the hat slouching like a clown’s tent slowly slouching to the ground.

The most fun I had with this little side project was how my little brother decided to do it with me. It was enjoyable to be a teacher for a day and help my brother learn pottery techniques. This was what he made; a little blue ball named Gooey. He is another mysterious character in the game Kirby. I knew the tongue wouldn’t survive the firing and warned him, but he said it was fine if it broke. He just loved making a very long tongue.

Behold, this majesty! I know, I messed up the glazing. I don’t really know yet how to perfect it. It’s more a life-long challenge that I will one day conquer with practice. 7 years of pottery should help ;). Anyway, the glaze actually adds some eerie shadow to the clouds in a artwork that looks rather lovable. But I adore that unexpected effect. It glorifies my message. Although the yellow scales are very emphasized, I don’t mind. I still enjoy the idea of mother and daughter. Everything else came out glorious in my eyes. The color difference of light mint to the rather darker colors give emphasis to the youngster. Then the black overlapping the background gives a sense of a storm, building up the effect that a child and mother can get through the struggles of life together. It’s a project that I wanted to give to my mom for Mother’s Day, but it finished earlier XD. Oh well, that’s okay.

Those are my last projects for Pottery 3. My three-year experience is an amazing story. There were struggles and it was challenging to master the skills of successful ceramic artworks. I gave my teacher a hard time with blog posts and I do sincerely apologize for it. I always tell myself to just write, but I have been entrapped in my writing mind that it has to be perfect for that perfect score. I learned that this is a blog post, and I shouldn’t be pressured for it to be professional. If I keep telling that to myself, writing blog posts might come more easier to me and done more efficiently. Maybe one day I’ll actually look forward to writing about my project. Who knows. Grammatically I try to do well, but I don’t have to sound professional. At least if my blog post is organized. Don’t take this in a weird way, but my teacher is like my mom in a good way. She watches over my grades and encourages me to strive to be better in pottery. I also love her style. Her spontaneous clothing and expression of colors she emphasizes in her classroom. That is how I will remember my experiences in pottery. Spontaneous. I never expect the random things that happen in this class, like a sudden field trip, Technique Tuesdays, unlock the box day. Those are just a few fun events that I did enjoy.

Looking towards the future, I don’t know how my path in pottery is going. I plan to minor in Ceramics in college as a hobby to build upon. I need to continue practicing my skills and doing more side projects. I’m optimistic towards the future for ceramics, and I can’t wait to continue learning. Pottery was a stress reliever for the hard times during high school. I believe it will help reduce stress in college as well. Wish me luck for the future!

I apologize for my writing. It isn’t as exquisite as before, and I do mean to revise it in the near future. If the writing has a perspective of oral communication, then your presumption is accurate.

Before starting this new project after completing my bear, I did not plan for this extraordinaire at all. In the beginning, I made the dragon mother’s head. It was planned to be a full dragon’s head, but the other side was never fully birthed. Concluding the mirror image was never going to be created, I stuck with half the head and contemplated how to create a project when only half of a head was present. I did wanted to create a mystical story with the artistic style of ancient clouds, but the original idea inside my head was of two reptile-like characters: a turtle and a dragon.

The turtle would have been a wise protector; soft enough to care for the needed but strong enough to protect those in need as well. A mixture of being both soft and strong with soft skin but hard shell. Eventually I came to the point where I couldn’t produce the second half of the head, and I’ve decided to stick with half of a head again.

In order for half of a head to work efficiently, a two-dimension platform would have worked splendidly. After brainstorming for the course of a couple days, I’ve decided upon a mythology story about a turtle and a dragon. I’ve created the base and commenced on stylizing the background. Obviously, midway through the project, I’ve decided to turn the “turtle’s shell” into a cracked egg and make a baby dragon instead. At the moment I thought about the themes of protection, but how a mother protects her child in nature or humankind.

Is it telling a story? The project has the potential components to properly illustrate a scene in a story. I do not know what that story is. It may link to an ancient mythology or an old folktale, I do not know.

Elements? Well, numerous amounts to foretell a story that I do not know. Let’s start with the clouds. The art style is usually seen in Chinese mythology; a swirl circling in, but with a closure to the shape. I drew some lines around the dragon’s head to emphasize wind, as in the dragon is in the air but not drifting.

This new process of starting with the slab and building up was new to me, but easier in my opinion than counteracting the powers of gravity. I am concerned about the amount of time it took, for while constructing the scales, the pieces were already leather-hard. I am now worried about the state of dryness and how many cracks will form throughout the drying and heating process. This new way is easier and I hope the pieces stay intact well enough that I am able to hang this up on a wall.

Again I must apologize for my writing skills. They are not the preferred way I like to write in, but it allows at least a full blog entry to be written down and shared to the public. At the least, I hoped you didn’t thought reading this was a waste of time.

“Sculptural Cat”

Low poly Cat Sculpture pet Cat Kit by LPobjects

“Schrödinger’s Cat”

With a potato stacked upon a potato

“Schrödinger’s Cat”

After a bit of skeletal development

“TED Ed Video on Schrödiner’s Cat”

Helps explain with visual and auditory help

~What did you set out to learn about your topic, subject matter, or form through research?~

       Since for my “Dewey Decimal” project I selected the secton of philosophy or psychology, I decided to base my project on the infamous thought experiment, Schrödinger’s Cat. I needed more in depth knowledge of the thought experiment and how to properly portray the idea through sculptural or ceramic-like creations. I set out to understand Schrödinger’s Cat, how others may represent the idea in art, and how to accurately convey the idea throughout my artwork. This is what I understood through my research about Schrödinger’s Cat.

The inquisitive and well-known quantum physics thought experiment created by Erwin Schrödinger in 1935 can be described as a paradox of itself, as it teases that such an experiment with the size of the subject as large as a cat is incapable of indicting that the state of both “dead and alive” simultaneously can be found above the size of an electron. Imagine concealing a cat in a metal box with a bottle of gas, a geiger counter (a device used to measure radioactivity), a radioactive material, and a hammer. If the geiger counter detected the radioactivity in a matter of an hour, then the hammer would smash the bottle of poison and kill the cat. It was impossible to predict if the cat is dead or alive until someone opens the box and observes the system. Until then, the cat can be said to be in a “superposition” state of being both dead and alive. “Superposition” relating to multiple or double states that electrons are able to be in. Thus, in a philosophical perspective, the cat is both dead and alive until human intervention. Curiosity killed the cat.

Exploring around the subject a bit further, I saw how other enthusiasts convey the idea in art. Most commonly I saw the structure of a cat with a symmetrical and vertical split on itself with half of the cat as a skeleton and the other one with flesh and bones. The cat is both equally dead and alive. A wonderful challenge would it be to portray that in a different perspective and with slightly odd differences. Creating a bit of a skeleton on one side and flesh and fur on the other side.

~Did you gain skill with familiar materials or techniques?~

       After having a firm idea of what I wanted to create, I set upon planning on how to make it. Understanding the structure of a sitting cat was key. I explored images to see how the bottom bulged and how the upper-body seemed to elongate up in an almost cylinder-like way. The head and the snout was also formed to not be a complete sphere. I’ve decided to create two spheres by the method of creating a “potato”. In order to create “potatoes”, I created four pinch pots and attached one pinch pot onto another pinch pot. Thus creating two sets of attached pinch pots. The slightly larger one would obviously be the bottom and the other smaller one would stack on top, almost like a snowman. The head was created with one pinch pot and a flat back to close it off and the limbs were just practically sticks with a few adjustments. To furnish it off, I engraved or scraped out bones to emphasize the skeletal part.

The arrival of my first Pottery 3 project started with creating a head-sized letter to be portrayed in the library all year. To build the “Letter Q”, I used the method of slab construction. Differentiating from last year when I had built the tripod with slab construction, this one utilized pieces of drawn templates, several more pieces to put together, and a stiffer composed clay. Last year on my tripod I had only two pieces and a rectangular template to craft with softer and more malleable clay. This new way of constructing with slabs helped build my art making skills. Improvement on the Letter Q was based upon learning how to bend stiffer slabs without creating cracks. After the template process of cutting out the slabs, I had a shortage of clean up time to hurry and store the slabs with templates on them. I hadn’t known that the leather-hard clay will moisten the paper template and leave a problem. The problem took the shape of white little fibers clinging from the template onto the clay when prying the template off. I knew that trying to scrape all the little white fibers off would be time-consuming and would leave a bigger mess as it will leave an uneasy bumpiness to the flat slab. To solve this problem, I had decided to hide the white fibers when molding the Letter Q, so the white fibers would be only seen inside. All the white fibers would be covered up. As if the problem never existed in the first place. Although the challenge was stressful, I had solved it on my own without wasting time. When the other challenge soon came up of misalignment of slabs when assembling all the slabs together, I carefully used a lot of slip and extra clay to align the slabs accurately. A problem after another had risen when molding the Letter Q, but with a calm attitude, it was profoundly solved.

Since the very beginning of walking into the ceramics room in the beginning of ninth grade, I have always seen myself having easier times with certain aspects in my artwork than others. I was soon told that these are called your strengths and weaknesses portrayed in this set of artistic behaviors. Over ninth grade, and now tenth grade, I had slowly been refining my strengths and struggling with my weaknesses. Here I reflect the two strongest strengths and the two frailest weaknesses.

One of my two strongest areas in the many artistic behaviors out there is taking risks as an artist. Throughout the year, I have managed to explore beyond my comfort zone again and lay foot on the familiar hills of dangerous risk. My most recent risk and unexpected outcome was applying layers of different colors of underglaze onto my sculptural creature. This risk was trusted with hope that when it comes out of the kiln room, the colors would flow smoothly in its own blend. It would appeal to the eyes instead of disdain it. This risk was granted with satisfaction as seen in the picture above. The next strongest artistic behavior is solving problems independently as an artist. Incredible amounts of troubles and problems have sprouted from numerous artworks throughout the year. I have dueled with gravity to have my artworks stand up straight, battled bumps and cracks, and raced against time to have my artworks finished. But independantly, I have solved these problems with critical thinking, problem solving, and patience to redo and fix each error. As seen above, my sculptural head proves to hold all three of these problems fixed.

Although I have sturdy strengths, I also possess frail weaknesses. One of the two weaknesses is resarching productively as an artist. I don’t find myself readily using great amounts of research. My ideas would usually change, but even then I don’t use multiple sources. Most of the time one image is used or I’ll hardly ever go through tutorials. The other artistic behavior is the collaboration with others in a community. This artistic behavior needs serious improvement as well. I have only started to learn how to accurately teach, aid, and critique. Half the times I can appropriately convey my ideas and knowledge and I do not readily attend artist talks or gallery meetings. Volunteering outside the classroom and exploring other artistic forms are very limited and I’m not an active art community member.

This quarter I plan to use my new project as a way to effortly improve my artistic research and my collaboration with others. I would use multiple sources to research about each individual set piece and their characteristics. I would navigate through tutorials to aid in successfully sculpting the many troubles my artwork seems to project, and I would read more about my numerous forms I’m sculpting in my set. In order for me to improve in the collaboration of others, this artistic behavior would need more practice and effort. Nonetheless, I’ve already seen progress slowly start to formulate with the collaboration of others. I’m really interested in other artists and artworks and wish to attend more artistic organizations, but I would need to look at more organizations first. I plan to slowly share my ideas and knowledge to my classmates, and effectively guide, support, and evaluate others who need my help. I need to slowly build up courage to express my artistic thoughts to the ones at my table first. My new project is all focused on the 4 perspectives of strengths: passionate strength, physical strength, practical strength (referring to the idea that more practice improves a certain area), and personal strength.