Palmer Martin Hall, in Use and Tour Next Tuesday

This coming Tuesday, November 10, the YVCC Art club is hosting a tour of the new art studios. We are meeting in the lobby of Palmer-Martin Hall at 12:30. If you haven't seen the studios yet, join us.

I am enjoying seeings student art displayed in the new building. Drawing, Design, Photography, and Painting classes have had work up on the walls for most of the quarter. I especially enjoy looking at drawings where the student are all working with the same subject. I think it is interesting to see the different students' approaches to the same view.

student drawing examples in the hallway last week

The wall displays are a way to show visitors to the building what our students are doing in class, they also offer students waiting for class more to look at and hopefully they inspire students in their own art making or to take studio classes themselves.

Palmer-Martin downstairs hallway

The clay students don't have as much of an opportunity to show there work. In part this is because there work takes longer to finish, but it also has to do with the lack of shelving for 3D work in the hallway. We are waiting on some shelves that can be put in the display cabinet, so I am hopeful that we will be able to display work later this quarter or in the winter.

clay studio student work shelves

Most of the other things that were not yet completed at the start of the year have now been finished or fixed. This week we fired the glaze kiln for the first time in the new building. Results seems good, though the firing was unusual. I've been firing this kiln for years, but in the new space it has significantly more venting, which impacts the pressure in the kiln and required me to adjust my firing this time around.

gas kiln in the new building

We also fired the large electric kiln for the first time this week. It had, oddly, shipped without a plug which took several weeks to be replaced, then we ran into another small problem with the controls that delayed the firing a few days.

electric kilns in the new building

Our mixer was finally fully installed a couple weeks ago. We've mixed several batches of clay and my students and work studies are starting to understand what the process is all about.

clay mixer and venting

The whole studio is starting to feel more familiar and more comfortable. Glazing started a little over a week ago and now all students have had a chance to used the glazing room and see the results of their glazes. This means, of course, that the quarter is coming to an end. The last day for students to throw is two and a half weeks from today.

glazing room