Packing and Shipping Long Pieces

The sculpture end of these pieces

Before I left for NCECA (post-NCECA posts coming soon), I finished a commission for my aunt, but I didn't get the pieces shipped out until after I got home. Packing these pieces for shipping was tougher than I initially anticipated. 

short and tall rods

The ceramic part of these pieces is fairly small, but each piece is attached to a metal rod support which makes the pieces long, longer than any boxes I had around the studio. 

my studio mid-pack

Luckily I had been cleaning my studio this winter, so I had the space to completely take over my studio with packing materials. I used several pieces of foam from a bed that my husband had taken apart several months ago. 

cutting the foam wrappers

I wrapped each of the pieces in foam and then grouped four of the six pieces in groups of two. I divided and cushioned the wrapped pieces with more foam. 

wrapping the pieces

I had four long and two short pieces. The short pieces fit in a box I already had, but I had to build a box around the long pieces.

large and small box (the large one is about 5'3" tall)

I laid two wrapped pieces down on another piece of foam, then wrapped the new foam around the two, I then wrapped cardboard boxes around the whole thing. 

wrapped pieces on their second piece of foam

The two boxes I had were about half the length of what they needed to cover, so I taped them together. I then took apart another box, oriented this third box in a different direction and wrapped that one around the weak spots on the first layer. This one didn't fully cover the original cardboard layer, so I have a wonky looking taped box that's about my height (and width).

wrapping the second box around the foam

At this point I only had four of the pieces boxed up. My husband found a very thick, durable tube that we cut in half. The pieces barely fit inside, so we had two tightly wrap the foam around the ceramic part with several layers of tape, then shove the pieces into the tubes.

pushing the last piece into the tube

Finally I reinforced all four boxes with tape and made some duct tape handles for each box to (hopefully) encourage them to be handled fairly gently. My fingers are crossed for everything making it to California intact. I'm also very happy to have my studio space back and be done with the shipping part of this project.

wrapped and ready for shipping

The Beauty of Clay at Columbia Center for the Arts in Oregon

This weekend I drove a car full of sculpture to Hood River, Oregon for a show that opens next week. The Beauty of Clay opens Friday, March 3 from 6-8pm at Columbia Center for the Arts and runs through April 2, 2017. This timing coincides with the NCECA clay conference in Portland. The internet tells me that Portland is just over an hour from Hood River, but its possible some people might stop on the way to or from the conference. I plan to.

The Columbia was beautiful, but the rest stops don't get you near the prettiest sights, so I snapped a few pictures without looking from the moving car.

The drive down to Hood River from Yakima is just over 2 hours and, though the road and weather were uneventful, my car chose to enliven the drive by falling out of fifth gear four or five times on the way down. For the last hour or so, I drove with my arm locked on the gearshift to keep it in gear. Fun times. Strangely, on the way back it didn't fall out of gear once. 

The one picture I remembered to take, just after parking in Hood River, note the beautiful beach towel ceramic packing equipment.

I meant to take pictures of the car fully loaded or the work being packed or unpacked, but I guess I got distracted by the process of packing, and then by trying to diagnose the gearshift problem. I thought pictures of the loaded car might be interesting, because I drove down alone with six sculptures occupying three seats and the back cargo hold. My friend offered to accompany me, but I traded her seat for a sculpture.

  

If anybody in Hood River wants to buy these guys, I do not mind not bringing them home

I loaded the two tallest pieces in the back seat, after removing the car seats and detritus from my kid. (The problem with only kids occupying the back seat is that no one remembers to pick up wrappers and toys and kleenex in that space.) These two tall pieces are also the reason I wasn't able to take the juror, Yvonne Pepin-Wakefield, up on her offer to drive the work down (she has a studio in Tieton and a place in Hood River). I could have boxed up the other pieces for shipping, but these two pieces are tall, heavy and have lots of pointy bits at the top that are likely to break if not packed carefully. I'm sure, given enough time, money, and motivation, I could develop a safe box system for the tail ones, but it probably was cheaper in both time and money, and certainly in energy, to drive them down, loose packed, in my car.

This little guy just stacks on top, no trouble at all to pack

Packing the tall sculptures in the car allows me to stand them up on the seat. I support the sculpture with foam between the metal frame and the car seat, and cushion every other area with foam, towels, or leave open space. Their weight and the seat belts keep them from moving around very much, but I certainly breathed easier going over potholes on the drive home. 

The Columbia was amazingly still, the land and sky reflected looked just the same as the real world above (I'd show that reflection, but by the power of cropping, this picture looks almost like I didn't take it over my shoulder out the car window)

The three smaller, less awkward sculptures were paced in the back cargo area in a large plastic bin with foam and beach towels. My main packing material for larger pieces that I hand-deliver is usually beach towels. They are extra large and thick, don't get used very often as towels, and we otherwise store them rolled up next to the clay studio, so they're ready to use for support or padding when I start to load the car (usually half an hour before I plan to leave).

the bike wheel sculpture (come home, little sculpture, and I promise to get a good photo of you this summer)

The front seat was reserved for the bike wheel sculpture. This one doesn't need much support but it does need some space. It fits just about perfectly on the front seat with the hub of the wheel touching the seat back and almost touching the car door and dash, but not getting in the way of my shifting arm (or, in this case, my holding-the-shifter-in-fifth arm).

  

the two easiest sculptures to load

I could probably adjust things to make the wheel sculpture fit in the back of the car, but this sculpture rattles a bit as I drive. I find I am less stressed while driving if all rattling sounds are close enough that I can account for them. I drove with this sculpture or something similar in the cargo area a while back and spent the entire 20 minute drive asking my daughter what was breaking. In fact, perhaps the gearshift problem was a good thing because it distracted me from worries about ceramics in the car.

Studio Assistant Week One

Earlier this year I started thinking about hiring a studio assistant to help me in my home studio. As so often happens with this blog, writing about a problem or an issue helped me realize something important about that issue. This particular writing made me realize that I have actually reached the professional level and now is the time to hire an assistant.

The studio gets fairly messy during the academic year and I usually spend about a week cleaning it before I can get to work in the summer.

Of course the blog is also public, so as soon as I realized I was ready to hire an assistant, I had a volunteer . I wrote about the idea on a Saturday and had a student suggest herself for the job as soon as I walked into the school studio on a Monday.

my wooden shelves today--after putting them back together and putting work back on them

Last week was finals week, as well as the week before June Art Fest so I had a lot to do and little time to do it in. My new studio assistant came over on Friday morning and got right to work. Its funny, I wanted to hire someone to help do the cleaning so I could do other things. Somehow I didn't realize how very helpful this would be. Not only did she clean and help me pack for Art Fest for 3 hours, but by working hard herself, she kept me mostly on task. if I had set out to clean for 6 hours, I would have gotten bored and taken breaks and gotten distracted looking at shiny objects in the studio or making tough decisions about which stack of bubble wrap to use for packing. Instead, I felt like I had to stay busy because she was staying busy. I think I got more than 6 hours of work out of the two of us in just 3 hours.

tedious jobs like packing lawn sticks are perfect for me to assign to an assistant

I was also able to give her the more tedious tasks. I figured she was compensated for boredom--and since she hadn't done all of these things many many times before, she would get as bored as I would doing them. I had her clear my wooden shelves and take them apart so I could take them for my booth this weekend. Then I had her pack up the stray lawn sticks (scroll to bottom of linked page for image) so I could take them and so they'd be off the work surfaces. Finally she collected tools from around the studio and worked on recycling some random clay I had left over from who-knows-when. As I type it out, it doesn't sound like three hours worth of work, but it sure was.

my new shelf of sorted (and sorta clean) bike parts

Meanwhile I continued the long process of sorting bike parts. Most of the shelf in my lean-to storage area is now devoted to boxes of gears, chains, ball bearings, pedals and other parts. This project took me days of work. I completed it when the studio assistant was here.

bike and mechanical parts (and some hardware) in my lean-to storage area

The upshot of my assistant's first day was that I got my show stuff packed up and also got some work done for school that afternoon. I haven't gotten much work done in the studio since then, because I had family visiting and a couple of jobs for work (still--why am I not being paid for this?), but my new studio assistant will be here tomorrow, meaning I should be ready to start building for real next week.

Mike Hiler in our shared booth at June Art Fest

June Art Fest went ok. The weather was nice and people came, but I didn't sell much. I did get some good ideas for new work based on some discussions with folks who visited the booth.

Packing the Car for Biomorph

Biomorph is still up at Esvelt Gallery in Pasco. Hours are are M-Th 8am - 8:30 pm and Friday 8am - noon. The show continues through February 6, 2014.

Packing the car to drive my work down to Biomorph in Pasco was a bit of a challenge. Most of the ceramic-only pieces and all the wall-installation pieces were able to be boxed up in little more than three Sterilite bins and two laundry baskets. The rest of the work was "loose packed" in the seats. 

work packed into the back seat for transport

I've always heard this method called "loose packing" but the goal with fragile ceramic sculpture is not really to be loose. I don't want to allow for any movement in the car. Some pieces had their bases boxed for stability, all were wrapped in bubble wrap, towels or blankets and most had boxes, pillows, foam, and/or other materials keeping them from rocking forward or sideways in the car. On the backseat I laid down some boards so the flat bottomed pieces weren't stressed by leaning in the contoured seat.

The bike fork pieces were so tall, I had to angle them to get through the doorway.

I usually strap my pieces in with seat belts but with the boards on the seat, I couldn't reach the belts. In the front I belted in the front two and hoped nothing would set off the airbag on the top of the piece packed on the floor. (Honestly, if I had gotten into a crash bad enough to set off the airbags, the show would have been over.)

two pieces belted into the passenger seat

Loading the car was like playing Tetris. I am sharing the pictures here, but I took them so I could repack the car the same way on the way home. Usually taking down a show is faster, but I had all night and a room full of packing supplies to choose from when packing the car before the show. On the way back I will have to be more efficient.

three pieces in the passenger seat and floor

Finished Sculpture for Biomorph

This is my third post of finished work from my show at Esvelt Gallery. The show, Biomorph, features work by just two artists, meaning I have more work in this show than in group shows and juried shows I have done recently. I was able to have control over what I showed and how much I showed. I have already posted about the two installations, today's post focuses on my free-standing sculpture in the exhibition.

last minute epoxy (blue tape holding the pieces on as the epoxy sets)

The main reason I have so much new work in the show is that I haven't taught classes at YVCC for six months. The work in this show is representative of the work I created during my sabbatical. I have some pieces in the show that pre-date the sabbatical and I have a handful of pieces in my studio that didn't quite get finished before the installation deadline for Biomorph.

three pieces finished

My sabbatical work focused on incorporating bike parts and other mechanical parts into my sculpture. I explored both the logistics of the integration of these non-ceramic materials and the conceptual and inspirational influence of the bike parts on the form of the sculptures. I began my sabbatical work in the summer and I focused intensely on it during the fall quarter. I hope to finish up some of the sculptures during the next six months, though my teaching schedule is heavier than usual this quarter.

five pieces finished

During my sabbatical I also wrote about my process on this blog (and was recognized for my efforts). I have drafted an article that I plan to revise and submit for publication. The Biomorph show and an upcoming two-person show at Oak Hollow Gallery in Yakima (as well as this blog) will be the main venues (so far) for viewing the sculpture created for the sabbatical.

asymmetrical sculpture

As of the installation of this exhibition, I have seven free-standing mechanical parts sculptures. In the studio I have one more piece that is close to complete and another that hasn't been glazed yet, as well as a few odds and ends.

squid backside

Besides these larger works, several of the wall installation pieces with mechanical parts can be shown as individual pieces. In all, counting bike part pieces, ceramic only pieces, not-quite finished pieces, and all the wall installation pieces, I built about 125 pieces this summer (that hundred-piece wall installation ups my count pretty quickly).

small bike part pieces for the wall installation

The multi-part bike pieces are the ones that were really the focus of my sabbatical research. Because I incorporated large bike parts, including wheel forks, the pieces are relatively large compared to my recent work.

Nepentha Prosthesia

Since I finished some of the pieces in the first two days of 2014, installation day was the first time I had gotten a good look at some of the pieces. I didn't have time for professional level images after the installations were complete (a girl's gotta have time to eat) but I was able to get photos of everything new.

Cephalotus Prosthesia

The bike fork pieces ended up very tall compared to their component parts. It's a bit odd to work with these relatively small pieces all quarter only to put them together in a week and discover a whole new identity for the elements as one sculpture. In the gallery they no longer look like the giants they appeared to be in my crowded studio.

Petal / Petal

During installation the gallery director and assistants indicated they liked the pieces. Mary Dryburg, the gallery director, mentioned she didn't know what to expect way back when I first proposed the idea for these mixed media works. For me, I'm a little too close to the building of these pieces to view them objectively. I still see them as pieces that required a particular glaze or sections that were hard to put together. When the show concludes in a month, maybe I will be able to see them as whole sculptures and a body of work.

Scylla Bionica

I am planning to go down and see the show for the reception on January 14 (at 1pm, join me). Perhaps in that context I can see them with some perspective. Or perhaps I will just stand next to the wall installation worrying that someone might bump something.

Charybdis Bionica

The pieces I am most happy with now are the ones that most closely resembled the original sketches. This is a bit of a surprise to me because these pieces were the easiest to plan and make and because the look of my work often drifts away from original sketches during the building process.

Cerberus

The asymmetrical piece I have worried over in previous posts is an interesting case of something that closely resembles the original sketch but required a significant amount of problem solving during the building process. In the end, this piece sits strangely on the pedestal. The tail section of chains needs to hang off the edge for a completely solid footing. The pedestals at Esvelt Gallery were set up beautifully for this piece and allow it to look like it is stretching or moving away from its original location.

I didn't get the best lighting for this shot, but I like the silhouette of the piece and the bulb installation in the back.

I would love to hear what you think about the pieces I have shown here. If you are in the Pasco, WA area, stop by and see the works in person. Esvelt Gallery hours are M-Th 8am - 8:30 pm and Friday 8am - noon. The gallery is free and open to the public. The gallery is well marked and is housed in the art and drama building on the Columbia Basin College campus. 

a line of sculptures in the gallery

Thanks for reading!