Bulb Installation in YVC Faculty Office Area

my installation at YVC

Over spring break I installed some of my work at YVC. This work is in the hall of the faculty office area in the art building. I also have some sculptures in the front office area and plan to put up another wall installation elsewhere in the office area when I have the time.

Chris Otten's photography in the office area in our building

The Yakima art faculty requested this permission from YVC's new interim president earlier this year. The main halls in the building have built in display cabinets and temporary display walls for student work, as well as a large permanent mural painting and the etched glass and cement of the front entryway, but the halls of the faculty area have always been very plain. We wanted an opportunity to have the visual arts faculty have our work up (and somewhat protected) as both a pedagogical tool, and just to make the space more interesting. 

 Our office hallway waiting for more work from Kayo

Chris and I installed work over break and Kayo plans to install hers in the summer, which may be when I put up my other work.  It's nice to be able to show the students what we do in our own work, since during class that's not our focus, nor do we usually have the time or setup to do so. However, I already know that I can use some of my pieces as reference for students who are asking about more complicated or just less routine techniques or surfaces.

these paper templates help me "quickly" apply the grid to the wall

I've done this format of installation before: 10 rows and 10 columns of bulbs in a grid. I already had the grid planning paper ready to go, so I used that, but later learned that the lowest part of the installation might be in the way for the carpet cleaner, so I have an email in to facilities asking whether they'd like me to adjust the installation to be higher and shorter (but longer).

My bulbs and other stuff on the wall at home

When I went to install the work I was surprised to discover that I didn't really have a lot of extra pieces. I grabbed several boxes of bulbs from storage in my house, but when I got to school, I realized that some of my resist or politics bulbs were perhaps a little too political to install at work. I ended up pulling work from the wall install at home to use at school.

close up of the bulbs at YVC

The wall installation at school now has abstract bulbs, chemo port bulbs, and some of the bulbs from the resist series that consisted simply of the text of the first ammendment and the constitution. When I got back home, I put up the too-political bulbs, as well as some that I don't like as much, but the home installation has had to be filled out with other hanging work that wasn't originally conceived of as part of this install.

new bulbs in the kiln before firing

With a bunch of ideas bouncing around my head, not a ton of uninterrupted time to spend in the studio during the quarter, and with knowledge that 100 of my best bulbs are at school now, I've been spending the bulk of my home studio time making news.

new spiky bulb with sesame seed texture

I've entirely lost track of how many bulbs I've made this year. I have about 8 on the shelf in my studio and a handful more in progress, but I've been loading work into a bisqe kiln at home for at least a month. I was originally thinking I had enough to fire, but when I loaded, I realized I had more space and some work drying in the studio, so I decided to wait for that. Once those pieces were dry, I had a few more nearly ready, so I wanted for those. I repeated this cycle an least 5 times, until I'd used all my kiln shelves. 

new bulb waiting to be fired

I fired the work yesterday and I know from the view from the top that there are at least 15 pieces in the kiln (because I can see them), but it will be a big surprise this evening or tomorrow when I unload at discover how many pieces I need to glaze and finish. In fact, yesterday I boxed up a bunch of functional work to put in storage where the bulbs had been because I know I'm going to need more shelf space for storing these pieces while I glaze them.

new bulb made from extruded cylinders

Expressive Portrait, Glazed & Finished: Fall 2022

Last week, students in my Winter quarter class started building their solid portraits. I've been pretty busy so far this winter, so I had not gotten around to posting the finished sculptures created by my fall quarter class. 

painted solid portrait by Thai See

The solid built portrait project is probably my favorite hand-building project. I enjoy the format of the class, and the way the students separate into different tools and techniques, then come together for this solid building project. So this project is fun because we are all working together.

Kate Winslet as Clementine (from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) by Thai See

 

I also enjoy it because of the way the students work on this project. Most students use an armature, but they aren't required to do so. However, because the build is solid and fairly large, the first day consists mostly of hitting clay with paddles to make it stick to itself or the armature. It's hard not to enjoy such a physical project.

Charlie from Heartstopper by Amy Matson

I suppose it is also fun for me, because while the students are working hard, pounding on their pieces, making lots of noise and moving lots of clay around, I'm simply walking around, checking in with them, making suggestions, talking about their plans and proportions and the positiong of their armature.

Nien Nunb from Star Wars by Carlos Garcia Alcantar

On the second day of the project, they are cutting, hitting, and still making large changes to their project. Eventually they start to separate and work at different rates, but by the start of the second week or so, by design, they are all ready to cut. And again, that day, I'm walking through, thoroughly enjoying myself, while they are all cutting and hollowing and again making big changes to their projects.

Scream, by Amanda Goodrich, glazed

I never built this way, myself, in undergrad or in graduate school. I never really used an internal armature in my own work before I started teaching either. I've done so since, but I'm not even sure I had made and finished a full-side sculpture like this until my students had already done so in my class.

Scream, by Amanda Goodrich, side

This process is just a bunch of fun for me and the students seem to really enjoy it too, though I know it can also be frustrating--and some of them feel the frustration more than others, of course. Some of the students who feel frustrated with the project are those whose work looks great to me and their classmates, but who have really high expectations of themselves. These students may be bothered that their first portrait project isn't as perfect as they imagine it could be.

Medusa by Valeria Alvarez

Occaionally, I get a student who is so frustrated by the process that they end up disliking the end product. This happens in the throwing class sometimes, too. They expected the class to be easy or pure fun or something, but in the end they found it difficult and that somehow ruined the results for them. I find that both students who struggled and students who didn't appear to struggle can feel this way at the end of the quarter.

Two Geckos by Brooke Mason

Of course there are some students who struggle or dislike the project or their final results because they didn't really put in the time. I didn't really have that happen during most of the quarter this year, but it has happened in the past. 

Two geckos before firing by Brooke Mason

The clay can be unforgiving, breaking or squishing if handled incorrectly or worked on too wet or too dry. Just missing some studio time can result in clay that's too dry and needs to be entirely restarted. This isn't such a big deal on the wheel, most of the time, but it can be a major problem with a hand-building project that took weeks to build.

Dog by Yarelli Sanchez

The work I'm showing in this blog is (mostly) finished work as presented for the final critique. Students in the hand-building class had 5 builds during the quarter and they were required to glaze at least 4 of them. One of the 5 could be painted, the other 4 could be fired in the cone 10 kiln in a reduction or oxidation atmosphere, in the raku or pit firing, or in a low fire kiln. 

Dog by Yarelli Sanchez

Finishing the work mostly meant glazing or painting, and many students used underglazes with glazes. Horsehair raku firing was also an option, though none of the solid portraits ended up being finished with only horsehair raku (one was done with horsehair then re-fired).

Dog by Yarelli Sanchez

I also tell students that they can bring in non-ceramic materials after glazing and firing. This includes paint of course, but could also include epoxy, clear acrylic medium, hair, paper, or any other materials the student wishes to use. In the past students have added a dog collar, rubber, beads, staples and pieces of metal.

Dog by Yarelli Sanchez

This quarter, just two or three students used something besides paint. One added some acrylic medium to increase the shine on her piece after firing. Another added hair to her Gollum. Though Gollum doesn’t have a lot of hair, it makes a real difference. His particular hairstyle reminds me of when my hair was falling out near the beginning of chemo. 

Gollum by Amy Matson

Amy, who created Gollum, actually used her own hair. She shocked her classmate when she cut it off during class, yakima more than she probably needed. Whenever I’ve made sculptures that incorporate hair, I’ve used the fake kind that you can buy in a cheap hairclip—but maybe that’s because I knew I’d eventually lose it all. (Hmm, now I’m wondering why I didn’t save my hair that fell out for use in my future sculpture.

Bantha by Julia Snow

Hair and fur texture make a bit difference in making a sculpture look realistic, stylized, creepy, beautiful, or strange. In the fall, we had some pretty different approaches to hair and fur. Julia's Bantha has these tufts of fur, Yarelli's dog fur varies quite a bit across different parts of the body. Some others focused more on the form than the surface.

Bantha by Julia Snow

I can't wait to share images from this quarter, with student's permission, because we have some very different approaches to surface texture happening. I feel like each class cohort can have a very distinctive feel, energy, or approach. This quarter 6 students from fall are continuing into the Winter quarter, meaning this cohort combines new and continuing students. I've been kind of surprised how different the energy is. The winter group is a good group, they're making work and rising to the challenge of the class, but the humor and perspective is just a little different. It's a little bit difficult to name.

Dog on Pillow by Thunder Morales

I suspect part of the reason it feels so different is simply because half the class is working on different projects than the other. I've got six or seven beginners, doing the same assignments as the fall students, but with sometimes very different personal approaches. Then I've got 4 intermediates working on pretty independent and thus quite varied intermediate projects, and I've got 2 intermediate students who took the beginning class online or while I was on medical leave, which means their experience, background and perspective is pretty different.

Dog on Pillow by Thunder Morales

I'm definitely not complaining. I've been really happy with how the group has worked together even with the different projects. They've now completed two and a half builds, and I'm pretty much always happy when the builds get done. Some of them had to push a bit to meet the last deadline, but that energy (oh no! here comes the deadline!) can yeild some very interesting and surprising results.

Dwight from The Office by Jordan Golob

This week my three clay classes all start glazing. I'm looking foward to seeing what we get for the first firing, but I'm also interested to see how my intermediates approach glazing, having already had one or two quarters of experience prior to this class.

Derek Arneecher's Winifred after the second firing (with underglaze)

My Impressive Wheel Throwers, Fall 2022

Student work, raku fired, Fall 2022

Teaching Functional Pottery at YVC

Functional Pottery was one of the classes I was hired to teach in 2006. When I started that fall, fresh out of graduate school, I taught Functional Pottery, Art Appreciation, and Design 1. 

Ella Steinhilb mugs

Though I was primarily a ceramic sculptor in undergrad and graduate school, I had been teaching myself to throw better during the last year or so of graduate school when it became clear that so many of the teaching jobs expected the applicant to teach functional pottery.

Ella Steinhilb mug

Throwing for my Job

In fact, my application to teach at YVC required a throwing demonstration. I believe it specifically asked me to send in a video of a begining throwing lesson. So my brother borrowed a camera and came to my tiny sub basement studio in the education building to film my throwing demo. Neither of us know a ton about video editing, so it was a one-take kind of situation. While I was demoing, I made a mistake and ripped the rim or something. I thought "well, there goes that application." But I kept talking while my brother continued filming.

Bowl by Rachel Barfus

On video, I said something to the effect of "well, sometimes that happens and when it does, here's what you can do to fix it" and then demonstrated how to cut off the rim of the bowl I was throwing.  Nowadays I build in mistakes into my throwing demos so that I can show students some typical beginner throwing errors and how to fix them, but back then it wasn't a strategy.

Student work, teacups

The coda to that story is that years later, when I had been teaching at YVC for years, I ended up having lunch with Dr. Kaminski, the YVC president, and she said to me that she remembered my throwing video because it made her feel like she could throw. 

Teapot by Andrew Martinkus

My Classes at YVC

Over the years, besides the three I was hired to teach, I've added other classes, most of which I designed or redesigned before teaching.  These including intermediate clay and design classes, advanced pottery classes, clay hand-building, a team-taught Design/Photoshop class called Design One Byte at a Time, and an experimental class called Mural in a Quarter. After I'd been at YVC several years, I remember my colleague, Bob Fisher, asking if he could take back the Design class, which he had taught before I came to YVC. 

Three cups by Andrew Martinkus

Bob left YVC at the end of the Fall quarter in which I took my sabbatical. When I returned to campus, Bob had left, our adjunct Art Appreciation faculty had taken medical leave, and a miscommunication had prevented YVC from advertising for part time faculty to teach art classes. All of this conspired to mean that immediately after my sabbatical I taught three sections of Art Appreciation as well as my Functional Pottery class. I don't remember the clay class that quarter, but I remember finding it disorienting to teach three sections of the same lecture class in one quarter--I kept feeling like I was repeating myself (because I was).

Student work Fall 2022

I also remember bargaining with my dean that I'd teach duplicate classes (because of a scheduling error or faculty shortage) in one quarter, if the next quarter she let me teach Clay1: hand-building as a stand alone class the next quarter. Of course I did and she did, and I've taught hand-building once a year or more ever since.

Student work Fall 2022

By Fall 2015, I was teaching Intro to Clay (throwing and hand-building together in once class) as a stand alone class. Sometime before that, maybe Winter of 2012, I taught my first stand-alone hand-building class (I was talking about making musical instruments in that class in fall 2011--and, oof, reading my very old blog posts is strange, they feel and look very different from how I write now).

Student work Fall 2022

Through my 16+ years at YVC, my teaching load has shifted from 1/3 clay to 2/3 clay most quarters. At some point around 2014 I also stopped teaching Art Appreciation so that I could teach the Western Art History series. I taught Ancient & Medieval Art history online this fall and last fall, but during the pandemic I went back to teaching Design (online) and Hand-building (online) most quarters. 

Carmen Nelson, blue and white vases

While I was on medical leave last year, my colleague taught the Renaissance and Modern Art History classes. This quarter, because we again had not enough studio faculty, especially in Grandview, I am teaching online design and he is taking the Renaissance Art History class.

Carmen Nelson, red and purple

Functional Pottery is Consistent

Though my other classes have switched around quite a bit over the years, I think I have taught a functional pottery class every quarter that I've been on campus.  If I'm counting correctly, I've taught functional pottery 42 or 43 times at YVC.

Carmen Nelson, flames ashtray

I was telling students this quarter that when I look at their work during critique, I am comparing their work against a massive catalog of beginner work from more than 16 years of beginner classes. I brought this up this quarter, in particular, because the work was consistently of high calibur across all students. Even the students who struggled the most this quarter, compared favorably against students who struggled the most in previous quarters. 

Carmen Nelson purple and white teaset

Magical and Non-Magical Classes

There is some magical alchemy that happens some quarters that causes the dynamic in the studio to produce high quality work. I've observed it over the years and those quarters are so energizing as a teacher. I think the basic ingredients are a full or nearly full class, a couple or three students who were going to work hard anyway, and then somehow the mood and the atmosphere in the studio has shifted just right so that everyone works harder, tries more challenging projects, or simply shows up. It helps to have an intermediate or advanced student or two in the studio to help get the magic started.

Carmen Nelson, teapot and flames

Other quarters, those same students, mixed in with a different group of classmates, or in a class that's simply too small, the magic doesn't happen. Often when the magic isn't happening, the visible results are that students are missing class, they don't come into the studio outside of class time, they might miss a critique, and one or two students doing this infects the rest of the group in the opposite way, encouraging more and more people to take on easy projects, miss class, etc.

Carmen Nelson teapot (detail)

The basic magic/no magic I've observed quarter after quarter after quarter. Obviously I try to control for making a studio atmosphere magic, but I can't always control it. Low class enrollment seems to be an almost insurmountable hurdle. The only think I can do about it is advertise the classes and help with advising. 

Searra Rodriguez handleless vase

Last fall was an exellent example of a whole list of "don'ts" for building a magical studio atmosphere. We had low enrollment to start. I was forced to limit studio access because of the lack of student workers and because of the pandemic restrictions. I, personally, got fairly distracted partway through the quarter and had to cancel class or close the studio more often than I wanted to. Some students got sick and had to miss more than a little class. And when we were in-class, we were trying to social distance.

Searra Rodriguez Cindy's Shino vase

The wild thing, and something I want to be clear about, is that students in these classes aren't worse than students in the magical classes. I fundamentally believe that if you pulled any one student out of the non-magic class and put them in a magic quarter, their work would improve--regardless of whether they started as the best, the worst, or somewhere in the middle of the other class. And I think it works the other way too.

Searra Rodriguez horse hair raku vase

One fascinating thing for me this quarter, is that while the in-class and in-studio work was consistently high quality, the online work was really hit-or-miss. I've flipped my throwing classes for quite a while now. Students can watch video demos instead of in-class demos, though I also offer in-class demos as alternatives or in addition to the videos. More recently, I've shifted lectures in the Functional Pottery class from in-person events to online interactive lessons that students can do on their own time (including evenings and weekends when they can't access the studio).

Searra Rodriguez pitcher

This quarter, while some students regularly did all the interactive lessons and assignments, others regularly did not do them. Or didn't do them until weeks later. I was annoyed by this, but couldn't figure out why it was happening when it hadn't happened before. It wasn't until well into the quarter that I realized what had happened.

Searra Rodriguez pitcher

In previous quarters, if students didn't do the pre-test (which was due before class/at the start of class on the second or third day), I would sit them down in the studio and make them complete it before they could throw or participate in the rest of class. I did this especially for the online studio safety lesson (that replaced a long and repetitive talk about safety on day 1 and 2).  But with not teaching the class during the pandemic and then after another break for my cancer stuff, I had forgotten about this teaching tool.

Searra Rodriguez mug

Over the years, I've developed teaching patterns and strategies and lots of them are written down, but this year, in particular, I learned how many things that "I always did" weren't written down and thus got forgotten or missed this quarter. Obviously I am making plans to bring back the big ones next quarter.

Liliana Morales vase

Functional Pottery Projects

I've kept the functional pottery class projects almost exactly the same year after year. They start with bowls (I once tried experimenting with having them start with cylinders, but I didn't like it and switched back), then cylinders. They have to make 2 at least 8" tall. Then for their third project, they can choose handles, lids, spouts, or all three in the form of teapots, mugs, canisters, or pitchers (or some combination of those elements).

Liliana Morales gold set

Unlike in other classes where I switch projects around, decide I don't really like the parameteres, adjust the order, etc. In the Functional Pottery class, I think the projects just make sense this way. They get lots of centering and trimming practice to begin the class. They get pushed to increase their size in the middle, then for the last project, they have some choices and more room for creative solutions.

Liliana Morales gold twisted teaset

I have, as I mentioned above, switched much of the stuff that surrounds the projects. Demonstrations used to be entirely in-class, then I created some supplemental videos, then I replaced all of those and recorded a a massive quantity of videos, then I decided to offer students a choice to flip the class and watch all demos online and none in person.

Liliana Morales blue vases

Now I've settled into something I think I like, for now at least, which is the choice to flip the demos, with a few demos required in class and a few "extra credit" demos offered only online, but most students choosing, day by day, whether to flip or not. Students don't need to choose ahead of time; they can simply watch the videos one day and watch the in-class demos another. Or they can always watch both. 

Kevin Arellanes, lidded set

What to do when they haven't watched

Sometimes in clas, I notice that students haven't understood the demos (or possibly haven't watched them). My solution is usually to single out a few students and say "this in-person demo is for you". I'm always a little worried about doing this in a way that embarasses students, but frequently when I do this I am noticing a particular thing they are doing that is just a bit off. An example would be a student who keeps leaning too far forward while centering. Though I've touched on this in the standard flipped and in-class video demos, it's a little hard to notice this as your own problem until it is pointed out. For a short in-person demo after I notice this problem, I would target certain students and would exaggerate the problem on my own wheel so they can see it at theirs.

Kevin Arellanes, lidded set

The one probel I really feel I haven't solved, however, is what to do with a student who says they've watched the videos, but it doesn't look like they have. Especially when this student has missed class or is asking for early-quarter things late in the quarter (often they also ask this late in the day). Obviously when there's time, I will redo intro demos quite a few times, but there gets to be a point where we've got so much else going on in the classroom (kilns, glazing, other demos) that it is difficult for me to stop or interrupt that to demo things they've had multiple opportunities to watch already.

mugs by Jazlyn Alexander. Jaz was in intermediate wheel, which met at the same time as functional pottery but had different and more challenging assignments

In this case, it is difficult to simply send the student to the video demo (which I do early in the quarter if they miss class and want a demo I don't have time to do in class or between classes). By late in the quarter, if the student hasn't watched the video demos (or if the video demos haven't helped), sending them to watch them is unlikely to be effective. 

Jazlyn Alexander, white bowl with drips

Class Time

Functional Pottery (and Intermediate Wheel) classes meet twice a week for about 3 hours. This time includes mostly live-demonstrations on the wheel and student work time. Of course, it also includes instruction and practice for loading and unloading kilns, glazing, surface decoration, studio processes, ergonomics of functional forms, critiques, and more.

Jazlyn Alexander, tall blue vase

I think the most valuable regular use of my time during class, though it often isn't something strictly scheduled, is watching students throw and checking in with them about that throwing. They can watch me throw in-person or via video, but if they don't get feedback on what they are doing, it is hard to take in every single nuance of the process and apply it to themselves.

Jazlyn Alexander, tall vase with handles

When I watch them throw, I can point out adjustments to wheel speed, position of their hands, speed and pressure of their movements, amount of throwing slip, tool use and positioning, and issues specifically related to clay body, centering, drilling, pulling, and finishing. In a shared classroom, I might intereact with students entirely one-on-one for some adjustments, but I might also notice that a group of students are all having a similar issue.

Jazlyn Alexander, tall splatter vase

Also in a shared studio, students can overhear my instructions to a classmate and that may not impact them immediately, but it might be something that they adjust on their own later. One thing I worry about, just a tiny bit, is how well this pratice will age with me. I usually squat down in front of the students' wheels to watch them throw. And I regularly walk through the wheels (we have two rows of four wheels facing each other on two sides of the classroom, so I can see 8 students throwing as I walk up one aisle).

Jazlyn Alexander, mugs

However, this quarter I noticed that I was getting more tired from squatting down between wheels than I remember. This year of treatment has been a doozie and I know that the side effects of both radiation and the current hormone therapy include fatigue and joint pain. I'm hoping that, as I get back to more regular exercise, I will gain more stamina, but this was the first quarter I really wondered about how my studio teaching practices will need to adjust as I age (the good news being that last fall, I was just hoping aging was something I'd get a chance to do).

Jazlyn Alexander, lidded jar

Shared Studio

The other great thing about a shared studio, especially one with intermediate, advanced, or independent study students, is that they can teach each other. If I tell one student about a particular technique on Tuesday, they might share it with a classmate on Wednesday (between classes, when I'm not around). Intermediate students have already learned the basics, so they can help beginners, especially early in the quarter, but also late in the quarter when the beginners want to try more challening forms and, in a magic studio, might start looking across the wheel aisle to see what that other student is up to.

Jazlyn Alexander, mushroom tea set

The fact that I have lots of video demos online helps with this, because students can look ahead. I also encourage them to watch other throwers in person (in the studio) or online. I always try to tell students why I suggest a particular technique or tool, because I want them to understand why another potter might do it differently than I do. When both approaches accomplish the same goal, the student can choose my way or the other.

Jazlyn Alexander, mugs

Of course, I also try to give students the tools to know when they shouldn't try another potter's approach. There are some potters online, especially on Instagram, who throw very fast. The speed with which they move the clay can be a factor of their skill and experience, but it can also be because the clay body they are using can handle that speed (while our frequently recycled class clay cannot). And, of course, there's always the possibility that a video is sped up artificially.

Jazlyn Alexander, plates

It can be frustrating to watch an expert throw in a way that seems impossible for a beginner. Sometimes the answer is more practice, but sometimes this answer is that even that potter didnt' really throw that fast.

Jazlyn Alexander, raku bowl

Right now all my studio classes (Functional Pottery, online Design, and Handbuilding 1 & 2 together) are full. I hope that, and the large group of intermediate students in Handbuilding 2, means that my classes next quarter will be as magical as this past quarter. I also hope and plan to bring back some of the forgotten practices around what to do when students don't do the required online prep. 

Jazlyn Alexander, raku dishes