Student Sculpture from Winter 2017

This reclining lady, whose body and face are covered with leaves, is actually incomplete, according to the student, and may have more color when next seen at the DoVA Student Exhibition in May.

Last week was finals for winter quarter at Yakima Valley College. I had four clay classes, two of which were hand-building classes, the others were wheel classes. We had glaze critiques for both groups and I remembered to take pictures of some of the work that was finished. 

 

These two portrait heads were some of the last pieces finished building, but both survived with minimals cracking during the firing.

The end of a hand-building class is fun because we get to see such a wide range of work. This quarter I began the class with a portrait project. It was fun to start this way, but the project was more challenging than my usual beginning project using coils. The class, overall, did fairly well building the portraits, but we encountered more trouble* with thickness, air pockets, and cracks or blow-ups during firing than usual.

  

These three heads show the range of damage: the grey lady's chin and mouth hid an air pocket which exploded during the firing, taking of her chin, but also cracking her head from her shoulders, Dwight from The Office had less extensive damage, most of which was repair before critique, Kanye was well crafted and very thin so that he survived the firing with not even a superficial crack in his head or body.

The higher than usual breakage may have been because we started with such a challenging project and the students didn't fully understand why the pieces had to be as thin and I told them or it may have been because they had trouble making the pieces as thin as I instructed. Many, though not all, of the sculptures had to have some sort of repair done after firing to deal with cracks, exploded parts, or parts that broke off before or during firing.

 

These two very different approaches to dog portraits were also finished very differently; the one sitting up was painted with underglaze and some low fire glaze and fired, the one on the left was painted with acrylics.

During the last weeks of the quarter, I gave several epoxy demonstrations to show students how to repair cracks or breakage, smooth seams, and fill gaps left by the explosions. I demonstrated three types of two part epoxies: some simply two-ton epoxy gel, some PC-11 epoxy paste, and some epoxy putty for filling gaps. I also demonstrated and discussed how to hide or fill cracks, make the epoxy less visible, and match the glaze color and texture with paint and gloss medium.

This cat is hard to photograph because of its shiny black glaze, but the form is interesting in person.

Despite several demonstrations and explanations, a significant portion of the class had trouble understanding that epoxy and acrylic paint cannot be fired with glaze in the kiln. I eventually started keeping count of how many times I had to repeat the explanation or reminder that epoxy will burn off in the kiln (I repeated it 9 times, though, to be fair, the last several reminders were to individuals).

This small portrait suffered from an unexpected underglaze reaction that turned the face bubbly and rough and perhaps darkens the character, but the expression is still effective.

I am actually a bit concerned that so many of the students seemed not to grasp the basic physics of firing and the processes that impact shrinkage, glaze melting, and the process of turning clay into ceramic, not to mention the difference between clay and epoxy, paint and glaze. I feel that I spend a significant amount of time talking about not just what students need to do to keep their sculpture intact, but why. I'm considering, next time I teach this class, firing a sacrificial piece in the kiln to show them what happens with epoxy. I may also switch the assignment order back to what it had been--easier project first.

This peacock meant to hang on the wall survived building, firing, and glazing, only to suffer damage from rough handling on the day of the critique. The break is minimal, however, and the peacock should show up in the Spring DoVA show.

Because of the structure of the 10-week class, much of the work is not completely finished until the last week. The first three projects in the class are building projects which we critique when the work is wet, dry, or bisque fired. The final critique is a glazing and finishing critique, in which we see the first three projects again, this time with glazed and/or painted surfaces.

 

One challenge of photographing in the classroom without a photo setup is that some of the angles don't show the full sculpture. This carefully repaired and painted elephant has an interesting pose from multiple perspectives.

The good thing about this setup is that the students get lots of time to start glazing their first and second pieces. The bad thing about this setup is that students sometimes run out of energy and enthusiasm at the end of the quarter, meaning that sometimes glazing on well-built projects is poorly executed. 

This elephant, too, suffers from the poor quality photo, but his extensive repair was particularly well done.

This quarter I had one student, in particular, who had two well-built projects with poorly executed glaze. The glaze on one was so thick it ran extensively, permanently attaching her sculpture to a biscuit of clay placed underneath to prevent damage to my kiln shelf. Another of this student's pieces had very thin glaze that ended up obscuring the texture of her sculpture rather than highlighting it. 

These two sculptures are actually pieces of three separate works that were damaged during firing. The end-result combines  raku and cone 10 reduction firings, as well as epoxy.

However, I also had one student who managed to resurrect some sculpture that had been almost a total loss because of an explosion during firing. This student's work had lots of damage during firings, but he spent time carefully applying epoxy and paint to repair one piece in such a way that the damage was hard to see at the critique. He also brought several broken parts of other works together with various glaze applications to create a new sculpture. 

This mermaid platter was painted with underglaze but not glaze for critique. The photo angle doesn't really show the depth of the piece.

It's lots of fun to see the stuff students finish, especially when they take the time to make the repairs, but it's disappointing when students don't finish their work. Similarly, it is disappointing to grade that last test and realize that they never did understand a fundamental concept from the class. Last week I had a few of these disappointments, but I also had a few of the best grading experiences: when the last test was better than all the previous tests, or when the discussion at the class critique revealed that the student knew their glazes and could explain exactly what they did to achieve a certain visual effect.

A tree with blue snake and a totem pole with a blue snake.

* The basic rules for a safe bisque firing are to make sure that the work is dry, make sure it isn't too thick (I usually tell students to aim for a quarter to a half inch or no thicker than their thumb), make sure there are no contained air pockets (because hot air is bigger than cool air), and make sure to fire the kiln slowly (with a preheat or candle). Most, if not all, of the cracking this quarter was due to thick walls and/or contained air pockets that exploded.

This poor turtle suffered from air pockets and thick walls.

Science week in the studio

For the past week it seems that the studio has been a place for science demonstrations.

Biology
During our clay class critique one student was asked about her mug and its interesting handle shape . Her explanation was that the piece was inspired by the lower intestine, including the appendix. The handle shape was visually interesting, but after I knew the inspiration, I thought differently about it.

In the design studio students were finishing their book project (they create a book that involves actual and implied time and motion examples). One student was expressing her frustration with the Design class. She said that design doesn't come easily to her and that to relax, she does her microbiology homework.

Chemistry
Later in the clay critique another student was showing her teapot. She had attached a thrown handle onto the side like a small Chinese teapot. During the discussion, her classmate pointed out that the shape of the rounded teapot with the two tube shaped spouts looked like it was almost the shape of a water molecule. She suggested adding another tube. Perhaps the second student had been studying the night before.

Physics
Of course the clay studio is always a good place for a practical physics demonstration. The other day we unloaded a glaze firing. Usually there are a few pieces glazed too thickly. The glaze runs down and sticks to the shelf or fuses the lid in place. This quarter we actually had very few problems with glaze running, but we had a couple in the last firing.

last glaze kiln ready to be unloaded

We also had a couple pieces warp during firing. The kiln reaches temperatures hotter than 2300 degrees Fahrenheit by heating it up with gas and forced air. This is a turbulent atmosphere and pots can warp or subtly change shape during firing, usually an open round shape can become oval shaped at the top while the base stays round. We usually combat this by firing lids on their pieces (as long as the glaze doesn't run, this isn't a problem). The lids and pots either warp together or the lid prevents the base from warping. In this batch I had a student fire her piece with the lid beside it. The top warped differently than the base and the two no longer fit right.

We also fired our first bisque firing in the gas kiln (which is usually used only for glaze firing). The electric kilns fire efficiently and can be fired without a lot effort by the instructor. We can set a firing program or we can do simple turn-ups each hour. I also have several students who know how to fire the electric kilns and they can help. However, this quarter I had two students make work too tall for the electric kilns, so we fired a gas bisque. I did a preheat (called a candle) overnight with just the pilot lights lit, then I turned the kiln up to low on one side, waited several hours and turned it up on the other side. Despite this very slow, gentle firing, all four pieces had some damage from the firing. Two pieces cracked at the seams and two had pieces blow off the sides during the firing.

large pieces after firing

Usually damage like the latter comes from the piece being too thick. Some part of the pot has a contained air pocket or moisture which expands as it is heated and forces the clay to move. The cracks in the former pots usually come from weak seams or a fast firing, or both. The gas bisque was a faster bisque than normal. Also, the pots were made from several different pieces thrown, then attached together and worked some more. I recommend that my students use overlapping seams where the top piece sits not just on, but in the wall of the lower piece. This student did not take that extra precaution. I would be curious to know whether the firing or the joining method were more at fault. Regardless, I can't fire the gas kiln much slower than I did.

Our last physics lesson came during the most recent glaze firing. I tell all my students to bisque their work before glazing. This first firing chemically changes the clay to ceramic and makes it stronger. As ceramic, it is porous enough to accept glaze but it won't break or slake (dissolve) if accidentally glazed incorrectly (i.e. dropped into the glaze bucket). Assuming that all my students were following this rule, and assuming that they would tell me if they somehow glazed greenware (unfired work), I didn't worry much about it.

On Friday we were firing the glaze kiln and I noticed that a piece had exploded during firing. I could see the broken pieces as I looked into the kiln. I was surprised that something had broken, since this very rarely happens. One of my students found a piece of the explosion that had fallen out of the back hole of the kiln and onto the floor. She picked it up and discovered that it was still clay. It had not been bisqued, but had been glazed. Of course what must have happened is that someone didn't bisque their work, but somehow still glazed the work and put it in the kiln. They were either confused or were trying to move more quickly. Neither I nor my student helper noticed as we loaded the kiln on Thursday. I fire the glaze kiln faster than a bisque kiln, since I have to get it hotter. Not knowing their was an un-bisqued piece in the kiln, I fired normally. I expect this morning will be interesting as I open the kiln and find the damaged piece and the neighbors that were also likely to sustain damage.