Post #590009 by Bruddah Bear on Fri, May 20, 2011 1:36 AM

Yep, that's right folks. Another one of those people who messes around with clay. I dabbled with clay a few times in elementary school, as most students did in my day. It was the usual class art project for your parents, hand print in a clay disk, small free form blob sculpture, etc. Then when I was a junior in High School I took my first formal ceramics class, and enjoyed it tremendously. Unfortunately there were only 2 semesters available in my HS.

After graduation I went to the local community college part time and eventually got around to taking ceramics again. Another 2 semesters and I had to go to work full time and earn some money. Spent some time at another local CC in a different city during the intervening years, but I never got around to taking ceramics again until recently. Reading through the many great threads on this forum, and being amazed and inspired by the fantastic artists here, I wanted to get back into ceramics so that I could express my inner tiki in clay.

So, last semester I returned to the same CC I attended right after HS. I could remember quite a bit about the hands on how to work with clay, but after a 27 year absence from the studio, I was a bit vague on the technical details I may need pass a more advanced class. I wanted to go back to the beginning, cover the basics and get my rusty techniques back up to speed. But, there was a problem, you can't enroll in a class you've previously taken and passed with a grade of C or better. Well, crap. Damn me for getting A's in the Introduction to Ceramics class and Ceramics 1. Then the nice lady in admissions told me that I could "audit" the class for no grade if I got the instructor's approval, so to the instructor I went for his approval.

It's a mixed blessing to sit in a class and be responsible for all the same requirements that all the other students have, but knowing that no matter how good your pieces are, the grade means nothing. It was fun none the less, I tended to impress my instructor, inspire some of the other students (and be pushed further by a few of them as well), and share techniques and what nuggets of knowledge I could with those who were interested.

When the class projects are predetermined by the instructor, and those projects must be completed for meeting the class requirements, you are a bit limited in what leeway you have in the design of your pieces. I was able to stretch those limits as often and as far as I could when circumstances (time available and approaching deadlines) permitted. I was even able to sneak a bit of tiki in there.

Here is some of my work (sorry about the lousy images, it was the best my camera could do);

Project 1 - Tea Bowls (x2), pinch pot construction, simple texture application, to be test pieces for two color glaze scheme (Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? That's it? Okay)

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Project 2 - Tea Bowls (x2), pinch pot construction, added clay design elements, to be used as test pieces for two color glaze scheme (More of the same easy stuff? Okay)

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Project 3 - Head Bell, pinch pot (x2) construction, added clay and pierced/cutout face design elements, to be used as test piece for stains (A face? He he he, it's going to be as TIKI as I can sneak in there then)

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Project 4 - Vessel with Animal Design, coil construction, 10"-12" tall, with added clay animal design elements (This isn't too tough, first concept was abandoned after one class session, second "cooler" concept abandoned after three class sessions, altered pot started for first concept and went with completely different third concept. Base of pot collapsed and buckled upon itself 1 class session before build due date. Scramble to repair and complete animal application in time. Whew)

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Project 5 - Formed Vessel (x2) rolled slab molded around form (cylinder, square, etc.) construction, at least 8" tall, added clay, pierced/cutout, textured, or altered form design (Cool, some leeway, and I can bang out slab pots all day long, 2 quick ones to satisfy class requirements)

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Then a little extra credit (that I won't get credit for either), but it will be TIKI... Well, sort of. Stains on outside, glazed inside, cold painted Mickey after glaze firing)

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What can I say? My son really likes Micky Mouse. It was inspired by this...

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Project 6 - Box with Fitted Lid, slab construction, 6"x6"x6" (mine was built a bit larger), added clay, etched surface/texture, or under glaze design elements (I made a my son a mini box as well, similar in design to the big one, original concept for decoration deferred when I failed to locate proper stensils before due date. Still turned out okay)

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I was trying to finish off the last of a 25lb bag of clay and threw this next piece together as an experiment in texture techniques and playing with under-glaze, stains and glaze interaction, plus it was a touch more tiki infusion (I even torched it for the instructor when he came by to grade/critique but "not grade" my work) It's small for a volcano bowl, but it was practice if you will, not really for serving drinks out of.

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Final Project - Tea Set of Architectural Design, Tray (x1), Tea Pot (x1), Tea Cups (x2-more), design influenced by building, house, street scene, etc. For our final we would put all the architectural tea sets together like a little town, explain the influences, how we made it construction techniques, glazes, etc., and critique everyone's work (Cool, I can get into this). Tray to be approx 10"x12" (I went bigger), tea pot and cups supposed to be functional (mine are, though many students wound up just making non-functional sculptural pieces. My original idea was to make a tropical hut, but as I thought about how I would go about it I had what I felt was a better idea if I could pull it off, my instructor and the head of the ceramics dept. both were a bit skeptical at first)

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My instructor was awesome, he was born and raised in Japan. Around the area where he grew up he would go out into the hill, woods, fields and dig up pottery shards from the Jomun period. He didn't know if it was legal to do so, but he did it all the time when he was a kid, the stuff was everywhere. He brought some examples into class one day. We got to examine them, pass them around. Do you know just how awe inspiring it is to hold a piece of pottery that was made 3000 years ago?

Not quite THAT old, here's an example of what I was doing 27 years ago (All I could find atm. I should have more pieces somewhere, it's either in storage that I can't access right now, or it's lost)

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And some mugs I made in '79/'80 in HS (My inner Tiki hadn't taken root yet, but at least they're mugs)

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Well, that's my story, and where I came from ceramics-wise. I was hoping to be in a class (or at least auditing one again) this semester, but due to our state budget woes the daytime Ceramics 1 & 2 classes were all canceled and I couldn't swing the night class due to a conflict. I'm hoping to get back into a class in the Fall so I can turn out some more tiki pieces, but we'll have to see. I could sure stand some more studio time, I'm suffering clay withdrawal.

Thanks for looking.

Bear

[ Edited by: Bruddah Bear 2013-04-09 11:23 ]