Artitude, Furniture with Attitude

This past April I participated in creating a furniture piece for a local fundraiser called Artitude, Furniture with Attitude. This event sponsored by the Wellness Community of East Tennessee. You can read about this non-profit organization here. I took this paragraph from their homepage:

The Wellness Community (TWC) of East Tennessee is located in Knoxville, Tennessee and is part of a national non-profit organization. We are devoted to helping cancer patients and their loved ones enhance their health and well being by providing professionally led programs of emotional support, education, and hope. We provide a full range of support services to cancer patients and their families in a comfortable home-like setting and all are completely free of charge.

I created an end table for the event. I have been interested in the relationship between micro and macro worlds. This table embodies my exploration of the two.

Relative Ability Pottery

Last fall, I has a question for myself: Is there a time when I more productive than others? As a teacher, sometimes I find it hard to teach AND create art. I find that I often put all of my energy into teaching and leave very little for my own production. Do any of you artists out there that have other jobs feel the same way?

So I decided to set up an experiment called Relative Ability Pottery. I started a new blog just for the experiment. Here is the description:

As an artist, I often wonder about my audience. How will my audience perceive my art? I recently started throwing pottery on the wheel. With this new media, I wonder how my audience experiences my pottery. I am conducting an experiment called Relative Ability Pottery. I create within certain parameters and rate my work. I will then ask for a public opinion through a performance.

Please feel free to check out this project at Relative Ability Pottery

KNACK

In December I was in a show called KNACK. This exhibition featured Art Education Master's students and was showcased at the University of Tennessee. I displayed some of my pottery as well as encaustics. For those of you who do not know what encaustic means, it is simply painting with wax. It is a new technique I have picked up recently. I do not consider myself a painter, but encaustics has sparked my interest in two-dimensional art. I see it almost as relief sculpture rather than painting. For more information about encaustics check out these sites:

http://www.mollycliffhilts.com/encaustic-technique.php

and Here.

Here is the pottery that I showed. All pottery is low-fired earthenware, cone 04 glazes, with decals from photographs or drawings I created.

Here are the encaustic pieces I had mentioned. A couple were in the show and the constellation piece was a present for my father.

I also took a workshop in November on cold-metal jewelry techniques. I not into making jewelry (I will let my good friend, Jess Worthington take care of that medium), but I did enjoy the class. Here are a couple pieces I made.

These were based on constellations as well.

Video of Where Rocking Horse People Eat Marshmallow Pies

This was an experiential exhibition. We not only had visuals to touch, but we also incorporated sound, smell, and taste. All of our food at the reception matched the art in color and type. My mother even made rice krispie treats in the shapes of tentacles and dyed them orange, purple, and green with food coloring! Those were a hit!

We used a number of musical artists as our sounds including but not limited to:

Skream! (music)

Deceptikon (music)

Sound Tribe Sector 9 (music)

Thievery Corporation (music)

Isotope 217 (music)

Here is the video!

When Rocking Horse People Eat Marshmallow Pies

I have been a lousy blogger! I have had so much going on, that I barely feel like I have had time to breathe! Now it is time for some updates.

In November, Christan and I had our show at the 1010 Gallery. Where Rocking Horse People Eat Marshmallow Pies was a HUGE success! We had a fabulous crowd that First Friday. Close to 1,000 people stopped by! At times there were people waiting outside to get in. You would think it was a carnival ride! Really though, that is not far from the truth. We completely transformed the space. Our artwork filled the tiny gallery and made it into a whole new world! This is what we wanted and it is so wonderful to see our ideas actually come into fruition.

Viewers has so many wonderful things to say about our art. These are just a few references we received: underwater landscape, alien planet, inside of a body, as well as many more awesome descriptions! Christan and I were inspired from many different things. We had such an AMAZING time creating the work and we wanted that experience for our audience as well. I believe we achieved it! Here are some photographs of the work.





Here are some photographs of our audience. Without viewers, people to experience the art, this show would be nothing.

One of my kindergarten students came out with her mother on the Saturday after the opening. She totally matched! Like a little squid in the sea!
Children seemed to love our show!
Yes, we let people touch the art. I am one of those people that has the urge to touch artwork and it drives me crazy when I cannot! Our show was very "touch-friendly" and people had a lot of fun with it!
A little glimpse of the crowd.

After the show, I posted a ton of photographs on my facebook page. If you want to see more of this show, please do so at

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2392167&id=9429486&op=6.

Video of the show to come...

Where Rocking Horse People Eat Marshmallow Pies

Christan Ciulus and I have been working very hard on a collaborative installational show featuring mixed media sculpture, ceramics, and wall pieces for the First Friday of November 2009.

Here are the show details:

November 6-8, 2009

Gallery 1010, downtown Knoxville, TN on Gay Street

Gallery Opening: November 6th 6-9pm

The gallery will also be open Saturday Nov. 7 from 12-5pm and Sunday Nov. 8 from 12-4pm.

Here's a link to the gallery website if you desire more information.

There will be music, food, and a lot of fun!

Hope to see you there!

Changing things up: PRINTMAKING

So last Spring I took a printmaking course with Koichi Yamamoto at the University of Tennessee. Previous to the class, I had very little experience with printmaking. A good friend of mine, Maria, is a printmaker and she inspired me to try out the medium. Like ceramics, it is very process-oriented and there is always an element of surprise in the end.

I had so much fun during the course, that I asked Koichi if I could be his assistant at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts at the beginning of August for a workshop. He consented and we worked together with about 8 students furiously all week learning intaglio and relief processes. It was a wonderful experience.

Here are a few of my prints

Intaglio Spores on gampi paper chine cole on BFK, 2009

Redbud Monoprint and Intaglio, 2009

Redbud Etching on gampi paper chine cole on BFK, 2009

Pieces, Etching, 2009

Honeycomb in Deterioration, collagraph, 2009

Drypoint VI, 2009

Hexagon Monoprint, 2009

Hexagon Monoprints, 2009

Spores! Lots of spores! Work from 2008

Pottery, to be or not to be

I have never fancied myself a potter.  I have always gravitated to more sculptural work.  Last fall I took a throwing class.  I had not thrown on the wheel since I was in middle school.  It is a skill that must be practice, practice a lot to perfect.  Unfortunately (in my opinion) there is a trend in art that emphasizes concept over technique.  I am not opposed to concept, but too frequently, "artists" do not learn the technical skills well enough to successfully convey their ideas.  Technical processes are merely tools to convey a concept.  It takes time to develop a skill and I have this idea that because of our increasingly fast-paced and fractured society, many persons do not want to take the time to learn a skill or trade.

So I took a throwing class.  Recently I was fortunate enough to come across a wonderful deal on a potter's wheel.  It is a Brent CXC.  I want to focus more on pottery over the next year.  This is my goal.  I never really thought that I would enjoy pottery as much as sculpture.  I didn't want to lose my voice.  What I'm realizing is that I can combine pottery and my interests to make more interesting pieces.  I also have satisfaction in opening the cupboard, seeing a bowl I made, and using it.  Functionality isn't always a bad thing, as many artists believe.

I really want to throw that "perfect" vessel, even, thin walls with a nice foot.  It is a goal of mine.  I know that I can, I just need to practice more.  The wheel is currently at the school that I work at.  I am going to make it my goal to throw 2 vessels everyday I work at the school.

Welcome!

Well I have had this blog for a while now but have not posted on it until now.  I am an artist and an educator.  Most often I work 3-dimensionally.  My passion is ceramics.  I love clay.  It's messy and unpredictable. I will work for hours and hours on one project.  It is so satisfying to open the kiln (the machine we use to fire clay) up, not knowing if the piece survived the firing, and seeing a successful piece.  I make sculptures as well as pottery and have done a little bit of both over the past year.

I also mentioned that I am an educator.  I'm working on my Masters in Art Education and am currently teaching at the Episcopal School of Knoxville.  I just finished up my second year there and will start my third in August.  I love it.  I love teaching.  I was fortunate to have a great art education growing.  My mother is an art teacher and artist.  Both of my parents supported any type of art I wanted to explore.  I want to foster such positive experiences with the arts in other young people.

Here's some of my art.  I'll try to post more of my past work with every blog.

In order:

Stumps, cone 10

Containment, cone 5, jars

A. artemisifolia, cone 5

Cynomorium, cone 05

Oh, and a special thanks to Carl who makes my art look better than it is through his wonderful photography skills.