My Incredible Handbuilders (part 3)

 

Slab box by Amanda Goodrich

In the last two posts, I shared photos of works in progress from my Clay1: Hand-building students. I've got more today.

3D Printed Tardis by Julia Snow

There really was quite a lot of diversity in the forms students chose to create, including lots of things that I simply hadn't seen before. Teaching the class over and over for years and years means that some forms tend to recurr. 

Chia "pet" stonehenge section by Julia Snow

In fact, the coil building assignment prompt tries to fight against this by requiring students to create an asymmetrical form. We are so used to seeing round coil build vases and pots, so asking students to not create something round immediately forces them to break away, at least a little bit, from that familiar form.

Coil shark eating a squid by Amanda Goodrich

During their critique, students can talk about how or why something was made and they can talk about their inspiration. Last week we saw works inspired by stonehenge, archaeology, poisoner's teapots, ceramic artists we saw in class, and Lego. 

Amanda's approach to the asymmetry prompt was fun to watch. She built the squid separately, so there was a sudden transformation when it was put in place.

Though they didn't necessarily discuss it during critique, I think we also saw influences from Gothic architecture, comic books, sugar skulls, scientific imagery, and Picasso.

Though a bit difficult to see on a screen, the contrasting texture of the squid tentacles and the shark coils is a nice touch.

One of the things that might seem like a given, but is actually pretty impressive, is that all 25 of my clay student atteneded their most recent critique and had their projects completed or nearly completed. 

The Jomon pottery inspired coil texture of the shark feels like a fresh approach to the subject, but also reminds me of Northwest Coast Native American designs or bronze age Chinese metalwork decorations.

 

The fact that everyone was done with their building and throwing assignments meant that we had lots to talk about. The fact that the projects were done or nearly done, meant that nearly all of critique time was spent talking about design decisions and techniques, rather than time management challenges and what they would have done if they'd had time.

Amanda's carved decorations reminded me strongly of window tracery in a Gothic cathedral

This coming week is the last week of classes. Monday we will load up the (hopefully) last bisque firing(s) and get everything fired so that students can glaze. We've got a lot of work not yet loaded, so I'm getting slightly concerned about how everything will get finished in time, but this is fairly normal for this class, especially when students are doing large and complicated work and when they are making lots of pieces.

Coil built duck by Carlos Garcia Alcantar

Last night I had my first anxiety dream about loading and firing kilns. In the dream, I was just trying to get students to bring their work to the kiln. That's it, the whole dream.

This duck started out with very different legs, but Carlos made majors changes and improvements to the stability of the structure as he built

I went into the studio last week to check on a couple of things and have thus far resisted the overwhelming temptation to go into the studio this weekend to unload and load, just to get things moving faster.

Thai See's crying coil form

I had still been doing occupational therapy (OT) for lymphedema until mid-November when my occupational therapist had to have surgery. I won't see her again until late December. I had been gradually increasing my exercise, weights, and lifting, while also trying to keep up with my lymphatic massage and stretching on my own. 

Thai @Thaiidraws started with the face, then built the rest of the support later

I can tell that my body is swelling a little bit on the side where they removed the lymph nodes, but it's hard to know how serious it is. I can feel it, but it's difficult to see. I was trying to reduce how much I was lifting, but it's hard to know what is causing or contributing to the swelling and what is appropriate work-related activities.

Carlos Garcia Alcantar's box is a delightful blend of the wild and wacky we see in his duck and teapot

Over the break, I decided to extrude some pieces myself at home and discovered that operating the extruder handle is pretty similar to some of the stretches and exercises that I'd been doing for PT.

The sugar skull inspired carving has some lovely variety and is juxtaposed against a stairway

Concern about my arm and swelling is probably a good portion of the reason I haven't gone in this weekend to unload and load a bisque myself. When I go in on Monday, students will help load and I know I won't overdo it on my arm.

And there's the arm and nose on the other side

I know that Monday is going to be hectic in class. We are planning to raku fire during class. We are going to unload and load bisque kilns first thing when folks get in (before class). Students are going to be expected to glaze all their bisqueware and we are also going to start loading the high temp gas kiln with glazeware during class. All of that and class is less than 2 hours long.

Yarelli Sanchez's slab built mushroom house 

By the end of the week, a number of students should be able to leave class early, since we'll be done glazing, waiting on kilns to fire or cool, and students will only be responsible for clean up jobs, painting or epoxy as needed, and an online test.

this base and lid is a challenging shape to get to fit right

The hand-building critique is the next Monday (the first day of finals week) at 10 am and we will likely be unloading the glaze kilns before class that day. If we have too much stuff to get through kilns, we might be loading or firing Monday, which means that work might not be done in time for final critique.

Coil built spaghetti by Yarelli Sanchez

I always tell my clay students that they can't cram for the final in the way they could in a math or history class. The clay and the kilns won't let them. I started talking to them about how close we were to the final critique about 4 weeks ago. They were asked to get their work from projects 1 and 2 glazed before finals week, and told why it mattered for getting work finished in time.

the bowl was coil built first, then the coiled spaghetti and hollow meatballs were added later

Unfortunately, most project 2 work was not glazed, some was only bisqued last week. And some project 1 work is also not fired or even ready for firing. 

The cracks add some nice variety to the back side of the work

The good news is that hand-builders in my class are allowed to high fire, low fire, raku or pit fire, and they are allowed to paint one item using acrylic or other "cold finish" techniques that don't require a kiln or firing after the bisque. For that reason, some work on the shelves may not need to find a spot in a kiln this coming week.

And as I told her during critique, I'm only a bit scared about how thick the bottom /back might be