Following my passion...

*First, my apologies for the format of this blog! I'm not happy with Blogger right now. The type is all over the place and it's weird that it doesn't give you a text wrap option for pics. So...i am sorry. Now, onto my blog! 

When i started this semester of school, i was excited about all the art classes and finally being in a major i felt good about! It was after all, the major and direction that, for so long, I've pushed away and tried to ignore feeling that it was my passion. I've bottled my talent and desire to become an artist for years. I was afraid that i bottled it for too long and it perhaps wouldn't come back to me.

The first day of ceramics was fantastic! Walking into that studio and being around the dust and cool air. I was in heaven!! Painting class was the same feeling, but with added fear of our teacher Jen, who is a tough one. But i was still excited to see if painting would become my other passion and something that i was good at.

The one class that i detest, more and more as the semester rolls on is Design I. The instructor has been teaching for 40 years at UNCG. Much too long if you ask me! But he's dry. Like dry toast that speaks. People laugh when i use that as a way to describe him, but it's true. Take just a second to imagine...here you have a very dry, perhaps a little overly toasted, piece of toast. And it speaks. Annnd that's my instructor ladies and gents. He's so dry. So very, very dry! To the point i want to throw things at him! I don't of course!!! But when I'm in his class i literally want to rip my own hair out!

I'm not sure if it's really him that i don't like. He seems like a nice enough guy. Has had a great deal of experience in art and traveled once way back when to Italy to look at art. Great, nice...whatever. That doesn't make him a wonderful artist. And that brings me to his work.

I say all the time that art is subjective! One person can see something completely different in a work by Picasso than someone standing right next to them. That doesn't make either of them wrong, it's art! That's the point!! And good art vs bad art is also subjective. You know that saying, "One man's trash is another man's treasure"? Well it's true. Thankfully. But i heard a story in ceramics the other day while we were working away, that my instructor told of Mr. Dry Toast, to one of my classmates. Apparently he is a master print maker. My ears perked up!! I am a HUGE fan of print making and it was by far one of my most favorite classes back in college the first time! So i was eager to get home and look up his work.

Well....here's how i saw it...'To each his own'. I don't understand it. It's VERY abstract, dark...just not my thing! I don't understand how he managed to get a massive scholarship and be brought into a college for his work, to be an assistant of a great artist. I don't see it. But i think that him thinking or knowing that he's a fantastic artist and seeing me who has serious attitude (i have tried SO hard not to when i'm in class...but i HATE that i have to take this class when i have a freakin degree in Graphic Design!! HELLO? What a massive waste of money!! And time!), and thinking..."oh this girls knows nothing about art or design!" Even though I've gotten A's on both projects so far. But the crap he makes us do...is stupid. I mean really. Un-inventive, boring, what's the point, and, like him...dry. 

The body

I am currently working with a few people in the art department to get out of having to repeat classes that i have already taken and are in fact, on my transcript as "electives". I have 3 or 4 semesters of ceramics, but had to take Ceramics I as a pre-req to get into the others. However, i'm looking at the repeat of hand-building to work on my craft. I wasn't a good hand builder the first time. I hated it. I wanted to be at the wheel. But when you're at the wheel you still need to use your hand building skills for things. I found that out the hard way when i made my first tea pot.

This will be the head of the rabbit.

Having experience in ceramics is helpful. I know stuff. I'm teaching some of my classmates how i do things that the teacher says not to do. While i appreciate his way of doing things, i work the way i work. And they are interested in how i work. I do always say, as i show them what I'm doing that Clark doesn't like, "This is how I'm working, but don't do as i do. Clark is teaching you his ways". They laugh, but a few of them tend to follow me in my ways because they work. 

One ear and "outer skin"

When you're working with clay that dries quickly, you have to find ways to  keep it from drying out before you finish the project. Clark says not to spray your clay. Bullshit. If you don't, you're screwed! He says not to wrap your projects in wet paper towels. Again...bullshit! If i didn't do that, then my white rabbit would be falling apart and too dry to work with. He says not to make the clay too wet when we mix. Again i call bullshit. You of course don't want mud, but a little wetter clay is a good thing. Particularly for hand building. It's easier to let the water evaporate later, then to try to add moisture to it so you can work with it. I'm looking forward to my independent study classes most because i can make my own barrel of clay MY way!

The body with the rim of the collar

Attaching the head was terrifying!

Now with both arms and some
of the details

I spoke with the ceramic goddess Nikki a few weeks ago about the direction of my major. She told me that I'll need to take a casting class, but to bring in some of my work so she can see my abilities on the wheel to get me out of taking that class. It kinda broke my heart that they only have ONE wheel class, and that i wouldn't be taking it. Then i talked to a girl who's taking it now. She said that they are having to make 24 bowls. Same size, shape, thickness...and then choosing the best 12 of them. BORING!! Been there, done that. I'm happy that i won't be taking that again!

I'm excited to be doing what i love and the amount of ideas i have in my head are overwhelming, but in such a wonderful way!! Besides the ceramic ideas, which the next one I'm hoping to do is a gigantic octopus, (and when i say "gigantic" i mean 3' wide by 4 or 5' high, gigantic!) I'm also enjoying my painting class. Probably one of the hardest art classes I've ever taken, as well as expensive, and I've gotten frustrated with things in the room, as it's very cramped and I'm a klutz so i knock over things more than I'd like to admit. But it's been great learning a new artistic medium and adding that to my abilities. While we are currently painting an enormous mess of abstraction, I'm also working on a few others at home.

I also have to say, as i finally near a close to this long rant about art, that i would never be able to pursue this without the love and support of Brooks. Last week i ran out of unemployment benefits. I was shocked as i wasn't prepared, so i was seriously considering dropping out of school. He wouldn't let me even contemplate that! He said that there was no way he would let me do that. He said that he would make sure i had gas money (it's anywhere from $100-$150 a week in gas because we live about an hour from campus right now) so i could get to school. I told him i didn't want to be a burden and he replied, "Baby, we are in this together! This is my investment in you! I know you're going to go on to do amazingly brilliant things when you're done with school!". I cried. I've never had anyone in my life believe in me or be so supportive, like him!!