Question O' the Day......

What happens when you trap a group of high school art students in a room full of junk for SIX HOURS?

Why, they make art OF COURSE. duhhhhh. Well, this is what happened to me. On tuesday. In the ceramics room. For six hours. On tuesday. For six hours. In the ceramics room.....

I know it sounds like I'm complaining but it was actually a really rewarding experience and it was really fun. I got my "creative juices" flowing FO SHO.

Diane Lou, our guest artist, was SO helpful and SO nice. She brought a bunch of her own junk, which was really great because I dont think we would have had enough to work with if he hadn't. But this is what I made:

This was the first time I have ever really worked with multimedia (I don't know why) and I really like the result of my project. I dont know what I'm going to call it yet. Also, I feel like it's too simple. My classmates said it doesnt need anything else but I feel like it needs something on the sides. Any suggestions? Or should I just leave it like it is? HELPPPPP

Family

For those of you who don't know, over the summer my dad and I adopetd two little girls who have been living with us for about a year as foster children. They eventually went up for adoption, AND WE ADOPTED THEM!! Having them as part of my family has COMPLETELY changed my life for the better.

So, when we were assigned to do a clay sculpture centered around an aspect of the family, I naturally thought of my two new sisters. What I decided to do for my project was to sculpt four hollow, basic figures. Two will be small and made out of raku clay and the other two are larger and I'm hoping to have them be a darker matte color. Theres nothing very intricate or special about the actual design of the figures but I hope that what will make this project special is the contrast of metallic raku of the smaller figures to the matte glaze of the larger figures. The smaller raku figures represent my new sisters. The sculpture is meant to symbolize that they are a part of my family now (same figure shape) but are very different and have completely changed the loves of both my dad and I. I'm still in the process of making them, but hopefully they will turn out!

While I was sculpting the smaller figures, Amy noted on how my sculptures looked like the work of Katy McFadden, a local sculptor. Here is one of her works, located by Lake Oswego City Hall:

Exploding Fetus.....

I had FINALLY finished my fetus sculpture after hours of work I put into it. It was fired this weekend. I came into the studio on Monday to check on it.... and here is what I found:



The head of the fetus had exploded in half and somewhere in the process the entire head had fallen off of the body alotgether, taking the poor fetus's left arm off with it.

It was a SAD SAD SAD sight. Luckily, I refrained from tears. But words cannot describe how dissapointed I was. And the worst part is that it was all my stupid fault!!!!!!! I thought I had created a hole in the head through the open mouth of the fetus. But apparently, the hole had not gone all the way through. It was SO frustrating.

HOWEVER, this experience did not prove to be an entirely negative one. In one of my first blogs, I stated that, as an artist, you are bound to fail at some point. I would consider "exploding fetus" to be an epic fail on my part. The key in failing is learning to deal with the failure and move on. Life is not perfect. You can't expect everything you do to be 100% successful. So, when you enconter a dissapointment, learn to make the best out of it and see the positive aspects of it.

Luckily, with Amy's help (I LOVE YOU AMY), I am currently in "exploding fetus repair" mode. I managed to glue all the pieces back together. Today, I filled the cracks with wood putty. Tomorrow, I am going to sand down the seams to make them smooth and then cover the fetus with a primer that will hopefully conceal it's flaws. Next week, I'm going to paint the fetus rather than applying underglaze and firing it. PROBLEM SOLVED.

I've now realized that troubleshooting is something I'm going to have to get extremely good at if I want to continue making art......