I failed my geology class. This much i do know. I am not a sciency person. There is a reason i am not a science major. I enjoyed biology, and liked science back in middle school, but that's it. I am not so much a fan of memorizing facts and crap anymore. I've got more important stuff to try to log into my memory bank now. And Newton's Law isn't one of them. Sooooo....i have to take another science class before i graduate. *Sigh* In a way, not graduating until Fall of 2016 is a good thing in this sense. I've got time.
The semester was fun. I met a lot of really cool new people. Some amazing artists, that i am now lucky enough to call friends, and watched as chaos ensued around me, damn near on a daily basis. It was always something. From Slippy falling into the slip contraption and our dear professor having to (literally!) hose her off, to a puff of smoke coming out of the furnace and the entire building loosing power....we had some interesting days.
A scholarship to Penland School of Crafts was one of the more stressful events. As of today, i know of three people to apply. Myself being one of them. Penland is a national center for craft education in the Blue Ridge mountains, up near Boone NC. Through them and UNCG, they send one art student to Penland for 2 weeks in the summer. All expenses paid and the lucky student gets to study for the 2 weeks, under an artist of their choosing. My friend Kathy went last year and said it was an incredible experience!! The way it's always worked in years prior, was that our ceramics professor would pick someone. End of story. This year, the guy in the big office upstairs decided to open it up to the entire art department and make us battle it out. Make it competitive since we will be competing for the rest of our existence for shows and openings. Which to me is allllll the more reason to not make it competitive!! We already look at every artist in the building as competition. So we were told to send 3-5 images (i sent 4) along with a letter of intent. Why we wanted to go to Penland. I started my letter 2 months prior, (thankfully i had the foresight to do so) so it went fairly easy for me. But as the due date got closer, and with me spending much of this semester sick with something, i lost a lot of working time. I didn't feel good about the work i was submitting from this semester. I had one piece that is in progress and the other one i wasn't too pleased with the glazing, and it's just not a strong piece. But it is what it is, and i photographed them and sent them along with my "please pick me" letter. We find out next week (i think) who the lucky student is. Sitting on pins and needles until then!
Tomorrow marks my last final before break for 6 weeks. Maybe just 5? I don't know...don't care. It's a long and much needed break!! So during that time my plan is to clean, and organize our apartment, get holiday decor up and spend some time in the studio doing what i want. Next semester will be here before i know it, so I'm gonna enjoy the break doing what i want!!
This semester i had a class that was an intro to sculpture essentially. The professor was, at the beginning of the semester, a god among men. He was like a rock star who taught art classes. He has work, and when i say "work" it's really MASSIVE sculptures all over the world! He's quite revered apparently. So i thought. By now the real "man behind the curtain" has shown himself and there is a small group of us who call him the "emperor". He constantly hit his students where it hurt most. At their talent. It wasn't enough to bitch at us during a critique or tell us the work we put in on the assignments of his wasn't good enough for the real world, but would find us outside of class working on other stuff for other professors' classes and tell us it was "shit". Yesterday i had my last crit in his class. I totally expected him to rip me a new one and tell me it was utter shit and i needed to quit school and go work at McDonald's. He's said as much over the course of the last 15 weeks, so i was ready to let it roll off my back as best i could. I think hell froze over a bit yesterday though!!
I was about the 4th or 5th person who's work we discussed yesterday morning. I still had an almost full cup of coffee, so i know it wasn't much past 9am. He came over to the table i had it sitting on and said something to the effects of "This is fantastic! Look at the detail of this! Look at the time you put into it! And more importantly, you put part of yourself in it, and i can see that!" W. T. F?! If he had exhaled in my direction, i think i would have fallen over! I was dumbfounded!! WHAT?! WHO WAS THIS MAN?! Was he just in a good mood, or had he really thought that? I was really quite speechless and didn't know what on earth to say. So i just muttered what sounded like 'thank you' and nodded my head. It damn near moved me to tears though. I won't lie. This has been a very rough semester artistically for me. And I'm still struggling to find my niche. So this was really, for me, the best i could have asked for in regards to him.
The assignment was to take a piece of music; a lyric, song, album, artist, etc., and build a sculpture out of recycled materials that read as the music in some way. I chose Ralph Roddenberry's, 'She Gets There'. I think if there was some TV movie about me, this song would very much be the soundtrack of my life!! For those of you who haven't heard of him, do yourself a favor and GO LOOK HIM UP!! Here, I'll help you. Here's a link to his Reverbnation site with his tunes...http://www.reverbnation.com/ralphroddenbery/song/1493153-she-gets-there
Anyway, so i chose to base it on the line "She packed her things and spread her wings" and built a "suitcase" with a bird coming out of it. And made it out of strips of magazines that were quilled and glued...that curling paper technique. Talk about a PAIN IN THE ASS!!!! I struggled with this one i think the most of all the projects of the semester. Even my 4ft sculpture of the Flecktones was easier than this! Plus it was so small. I'm not used to working small. Shocking i know!! But because the song is so close to my heart, it really showed in the care and time in the details i put into it. I wish i had a pic of it...i'll post one as soon as i pick it up this weekend.
Ceramics this semester went ok. I was literally sick most of the semester with something!! So i missed a lot of working time and because clay is so time sensitive, some things worked, and some didn't. During the first crit we had in class, i told the class i didn't know what i was doing, put my work, abilities and talent down, and basically tore apart my own sculpture. I got a phone call about it the next evening while i was working in the studio on the second piece. I won't mention names to protect my person, but person told me they were worried about me as an artist. The conversation went on, but those first few minutes of person reaching out like that, moved me to tears!! I was so touched. And person was right! I needed to not shoot myself in the foot and get behind myself for support and believe in myself more. I needed to take credit where it was due and be gracious, not shake it off and speak on the contrary. Not everyone is an artist. And not every artist works the same. I had abilities and things i could be proud of and work to get better at. Am i perfect? Hell no! But that doesn't mean my work is total crap!! So, now i try to keep all that in mind. Person's voice is constantly in my head as i work, and i will forever be indebted to person for that.
This is my Flecktones piece. It's based on Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. Haven't heard of them? Here's a link to my fav...http://youtu.be/vPT3CGe4FS0 . I saw them in concert at Shakori a few years ago and it literally changed my life!! I was in a really dark place for a long time before going on this camping trip and this was sort of an awakening for me. But i digress...a story for another blog. (Good lord this one is long!! Sorry!!!)It stands an inch shy of 4 ft before it was fired. By far, this is my most favorite!! The instruments are damn near to scale! And the flowers, are pretty great too!
When i built it, i built it on a kiln shelf so it'd be a bit easier to fire. Well that was the plan anyway. The day we moved it, the shelf broke under it as we were lifting it!! OMG!!!! Damn near lost the whole thing to the floor during the ceramics 1 class. Thankfully one of the students in there was standing at the end of the table and watching this, so we both grabbed for the piece, i grabbed part of the very heavy shelf that was about to bust to tiny pieces on the floor, or take out a toe, and we managed to save it. Cat like reflexes i tell ya!! And thankfully it's pretty light considering it's massive size! And yes, this piece is hollow!! Making things thick and solid is just a way to make a kiln bomb. No thanks!!
During the entire process of building this one, i had SO many people come over to me while i was working and say things like, "That's really big!" or "Why can't you make anything small?" or my personal fav, "Where in the heck are you gonna put that thing when you're done?" With each comment, I'd get a little closer to throwing a wad of clay at the person, but I'd try really hard to take a breath and respond with, "Yea i know", "Go big or go home!" or "Worrying about that hinders the creative process". I really have very little patience for ignorant people, and truly feel that when people comment in a negative way on someones art work, it's from ignorance. Negative comments aren't always constructive criticism, sometimes they're just mean.
I did a series of heads as well. It was really a work of exploration and i gave them a purpose. They were what I've titled, "Finding beautify in negative space". They aren't pretty by any means. So i added a small flower to each one as the beauty. I really just wanted to play and see what happened. I didn't want them to be pretty or with a "finished" sense to them. I wanted them to catch a viewer off guard. The glazing is where they kinda went to crap. That's where i tend to lose my work. Or i don't like my work after it's finished. Which is why Flecktones is still sitting unfinished. I'm terrified to make a mistake with this one and ruin the whole thing. 4 feet of hideous glazing is a big mistake and not something i want to look at in my house.
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| "Finding Beauty in Negative Space" |
Here's the back. These photos aren't even of the finished piece now that i look a bit more closely at them. Ahh well. That's ok. Ya get the gist. 
This is the other large bust, the second one i started at the same time i was working on Flecktones and trying to do both. But i kinda lost interest once i had the base for this one. It was over 4 ft. in height and so i tried several times to rework it. But i never wrote any of the ideas down and then would start again, trying to pull it together. The sad part was that it was well over 100 pounds of clay that i recycled. The only part i saved was a few of the fishy faces i had on the side and a cool boot with flowers. That sit, say it with me...unfinished. Lol!!
It was actually really sort of healing to cut this big monstrosity apart!! It felt very freeing and relaxing.
Ok, so i know this blog is like a mile freakin long, and quite honestly...i doubt anyone really cares to read this whole thing...it was really me just purging out some of the stuff that's been in my head and needed to get it off my chest. But one more thing...
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| Chubby caterpillar!!!! |
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| I love his face!! I keep being told he looks like the caterpillar from Bug's Life, but that was NEVER the intent!! Please don't sue me Disney! |
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| He has 3 pair of what will be red Chuck Taylor's! |
Ok. I'm done now. :)
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