Good news and bad news

Bad news first: My camera gave up the ghost...breathed its last...went to camera heaven...basically it died. It was on the fritz for awhile...I knew it was going to happen. Still, I am very sad about this.

Good news: I'm home for Spring Break! And my brother is going to graciously allow me (I'm 99% sure) to borrow his camera for the rest of the semester. Isn't he the bee's knees? :)

I just got home today. I'm completely exhausted! I stayed at school until today because NCECA is in Philly this year and it starts Tuesday, but I'm not going. Our school held a pre-conference and ceramic artists Sarah Jaeger, Steve Godfrey, Tom Bartel and Von Venhuizen came to do demos and lectures for us before they went to NCECA tomorrow. It was really cool to meet them. One of the fun things about going to events like this is that you meet people who enjoy the same things you do and you can get a lot of information and ideas from these people. Another cool thing is that these guys aren't "hoity-toity" just because they're well-known ceramists. They're really friendly, casual people. A lot of them are professors at universities just like my professors. They're approachable, funny, and happy and willing to answer any questions you may have. They also occasionally mess up their work or encounter problems that they have to solve while working and that is encouraging to see professional potters still have to deal with problems that I deal with. Clay seems to have a mind of its own. It's good to know that the experts still are learning new things about it each time they handle it. In fact, Von and Tom had this conversation while they were working about a talk Von had with a student who was afraid to mess up something they were working on. He told them that you learn best from mistakes. You learn a whole lot more about what you can or cannot do with clay when you mess something up than you do when you get something to work. Sarah Jaeger also said that it's the whole idea that you learn something new about clay every day that keeps her coming back to work with it. She said if she knew everything about it and there was no challenge she would lose interest. Hearing these artists say that was so encouraging because I am such a perfectionist sometimes with my work and even though I'm not afraid to ruin a mug or a bowl while trying something new, I get frustrated when I feel like I'm not catching on fast enough.

So since my camera died I didn't get to take pictures the whole time I was there. My friend came with me this afternoon though and allowed me to use her camera to take pictures so once I get copies of those I'll upload them to this post! For now I have a couple of homework assignments to work on and aside from those I intend to thoroughly enjoy my time off school/work and have fun with my family and friends. A very special person is turning a year old on April Fools Day! That's right! My niece is almost a year old. I just can't believe how quickly this year went by. My baby is growing so fast! I am going to try to make her a little present...not sure what yet though. But that will give me something to work on before Thursday!

I'll try to update some stuff later. For now though I'm going to bed. A tea party with my sisters and friends is on the agenda for tomorrow...it's SO good to be home! :)

Locker Art

I have classes upstairs in our school twice a week and to get to my classrooms I have to walk past all the lockers. I've been saying for months now that I'm going to photograph the lockers and I only now have gotten to it. Of course, some of the stuff on the lockers is obscene, but there are a few fun things to look at. I particularly enjoy the ongoing saga of Samurai Cat and Ninja Goldfish (pictured below), but also thought some of the other things were cute too. Have a peek:

Here and there...it's been quite a week!

I haven't been so busy in ages! I had no idea art school was so exhausting! Luckily this weekend I was able to fit in a few days of rest since my week was very tiring. On Friday I went out with my roomies to go to a couple of stores and then we got dinner. Saturday I slept in and worked. Today...ahh, Sundays....today I went to church (I love my church!), went on a picnic and a 6 mile hike, went to a Bible study and had a work meeting. It was a great day! And the weather was in the 70s...you couldn't ask for a more beautiful weekend.

Here are some pictures...My roomies and Dash. He's my roomie's friend from Swing dancing class.

I was pretending to have fallen off the wall I was climbing. I think I could actually get into rock climbing.

It's warm enough for skirts and flip flops. Hello, Spring! I missed you!

My roomie and I have been stealing...er, that is collecting rocks for a Bible study project. We've been picking up rocks all semester and we're going to paint them. We've got about 55 and we don't need anymore. I still get the urge to pick up rocks while I'm walking back and forth to classes though. :)

This is me with my RA, Amanda. She is a sweetie. All my RAs are pretty awesome. I'll miss them next year. I'm going to be getting an apartment with my roomies and another friend. I also signed up to study in China next fall with the ceramics department. If I can figure out a way to pay for it without going into crazy debt then I'll be living in China for about 3 and a half months. Scary and exciting all at the same time! I hope it all works out!

It's been kinda muggy around here lately...

It's almost looking like I don't do anything with ceramics anymore! I never post on it it seems. In actuality I've been making quite a few things. I've had 2 more critiques since the Admiral. We're back on the wheel now. I love it! As my teacher said (in reference to throwing on the wheel), "there's no place like home." Yes, that is very droll. :)

Here is a little mug I threw and had salt-fired. I didn't use any glazes on it or anything. I really like how it came out. It reminds me of the beach for some reason. I guess because it looks like sand. I've got about 15 more that have been bisque fired and glazed, but haven't been fired again yet. I also threw a few more last night. I have this idea for graffiti mugs...I'm researching Banksy for an artist powerpoint project and his work is somewhat inspiring me to graffiti my mugs. I'll let you know if this goes anywhere. :)


I feel like I can see a definite improvement in my mugs. They're thinner and the handles are better. It makes me happy! I thought I would never figure them out but I learned a new way to make and attach handles and it works much better for me than the old way did. Another thing I learned to do was make slip! I made a new red slip because our old one kept burning out when it was fired for the second time. I'd like to try to make a yellow and maybe purple slip too! My teacher said he wouldn't mind if I did. It's just a matter of finding time for it. I can't believe this semester is getting so close to being finished!

I glazed a bunch of my mugs and upon my teacher's advice drew sketches of each mug I've made and wrote down what I used to glaze it. He said this is a good idea because sometimes you'll do crazy stuff to a piece while glazing and it will come out really good or really bad. Either way you'll want to remember what you did so you can repeat it or so you know not to repeat it. So here are a few pictures of my sketches and notes.
I can't wait to see if they turn out alright. Glazing always makes me a bit nervous because sometimes my stuff comes out so ugly! I'm hoping that this time when we unload it I'll be happy with the results!

I'll try to get more pictures when I have something to show for my work!

I draw such exciting things!

I think our still life drawings are boring. I would like to draw something besides silverware, ladders, boxes, jars, etc. I understand we are going to be drawing the figure when we get back from spring break. I think that entails drawing nudes. I don't want to draw anything that exciting. Why can't we have a happy medium?In the meantime, this is my homework that I turned in a day late because that fork was giving me a fit! I'm not exactly pleased with it still, but I'm glad it's done! This past week was exhausting! I didn't get to bed before 3 am all week and had to be up between 7:30 and 9 am each morning. On Friday night I made it a point to be in bed by midnight. However, at 3 am some crazy drunk guy was pounding on the door and trying to key into my room. I was not amused! I called my RA and woke her up and she took care of it, thankfully. I still managed to go back to sleep until 11:30 am. I think I was catching up on my lost sleep from the week. I am now officially ready for Spring Break!

As a side note, I think college is great training for parenthood. I am realizing that I can function (maybe not super efficiently, but I still manage) on 3-6 hours of sleep and then manage a full day of classes, work, Bible studies and homework. Sure it's not really preparing me for actual parenthood, just the sleep deprivation part.

Okay, that was all. :)

Silhouette Project

In my 2D design class I had to pair off with someone and create a silhouette that demonstrated some form of conflict. My partner and I decided to do a storm scene with a tornado. We decided to make our tornado 3D by having it come off the paper. We even added a strobe light for special effects. We were going to try to have a whole bunch of other cool stuff like a fan blowing things around inside the tornado and storm sounds and we were even thinking about bringing in spray bottles and squirting people while they looked at it. In the end we just had the strobe light though. :( Oh well, it was still pretty cool. It was too awkward for me to photograph, especially since it was hung in a narrow hallway so I videoed it instead. This way you can see the strobe light too. We wanted to put the strobe light inside the tornado, but it didn't end up working out. Instead we had to put it on a stool and let it shine on it from the outside.

Check it out!


Sorry for the poor quality of the video...pretend it's awesome, okay? :)

photo-shopping

This week has been nuts. And it's only Tuesday. :( I went home this past weekend and while it was good to see my family again, I got behind in my homework! Not so good. I haven't been prepared at all for any of my classes. But on a lighter note, it is only Tuesday so even though I've gotten off to a shaky start, hopefully I'll end the week with more productivity.

My partner and I finished the Tornado silhouette project. I think it looked pretty good. :) For my next project I have to do a self portrait and use magazine clippings to "paint" the color on. It's kind of confusing to explain, but basically we have a lot of artistic license with this project. So today I am going to show you what the "rough draft" of my self portrait will look like. I took this picture by Botticelli....
And superimposed my face on it....
and I may try to change the colors around a bit before I start the project. I think we look a lot a like. When I first saw this painting online I thought we looked similar enough that it would be fun to put my face on hers, but now I think we look almost eerily alike.

It's kinda creepy and fun. :)