Text & Symbols on Bulbs

second amendment

I've been using text on my bulbs since last year. This year I wanted to use text again, but I wanted to address how difficult it is to read a whole surface of text, especially since the surface that I wanted to cover with text curves. Last year I had used the first amendment and the declaration of independence on the surface of different bulbs, but I found that during the year, when I showed these bulbs, I couldn't quickly identify the source of the text. The text looked just like a pattern.

first amendment list

This year I was thinking of the first and second amendment in contrast to one another. I was thinking about how factions in the political world of today latch on to one or the other of these amendments as their favorite or their rallying cry. I decided to add a rifle over the text of the second amendment to provide a visual clue to the content of the text, and I broke up the themes of the first amendment into bullet points instead of writing out the whole text. I also considered highlighting these terms in the whole text with contrasting color to help viewers quickly see the topic.

protest signs

I've used some hand written text as well. The signs I did earlier this summer are lettered by hand instead of using stamps. I wanted the text to look like marker on a poster board sign, rather than the fancy serif font of my text stamps.

"please vote"

I am trying to complete 30 (ahem, or 60 or 90) pieces for this Art a Day project and using text, and especially text stamps, helps speed up the building process for those pieces that use text. I had been trying to think of how to think of how to capture the amorphous and by nature slightly invisible issue of women being left out of the room in the current administration. We keep seeing rooms full of old white men with nary a woman or a person of color in sight. The small size of the bulbs doesn't really leave room for detailed drawings where one can discern gender, so I decided to go with symbols of gender.

"gender inequity"

To do this, I decided to cover the surface with identical circles, but mark very few as women and most as men. I used stamp for the circles, but chose a fairly large one. I then used a carving tools to draw in the arrows and lines for the male and female symbols. My first attempt ended up with very crowded looking symbols. I obscured these and used a thin line coming off the larger circle for my second attempt. I am still considering replacing this one with a version that uses a narrower and smaller circle stamp.

The white marks are corn starch that was used to keep the stamp from sticking.

I also tried to create a contrast of the two sides. On one side, all men with one woman barely visible, on the other side, a nearly equal split of the genders. However, the shape of the bulb makes this difficult because the symbols on the bottom and sides can be seen from both side of the bulb and the curving surface means that down on one side might be up on the other. 

"mansplaining"

In a second attempt to visually capture the issue of silencing women's voices in our culture, I wanted to use text to stand in for mansplaining, though I'm not sure how familiar a general audience is with the "well, actually..." phrase. 

"hate speech"

And, the final sculpture this week that incorporates text is this one that also incorporates an open mouth, a motif I've been playing around with lately. I have been thinking about this image for months, but I lost the sketchbook in which I initially drew this. I had to think of it again before I made it. The items coming out of the mouth are meant to be reminiscent of flames, snakes, or vomit. The words, of course, are a tiny selection of the many, many nasty names and allegations that have come out of our president's mouth in the last year or two.

ready to fire

Under Glazing Text Bulbs

text bulbs with underglaze applied and wiped, before firing

I've been glazing and underglazing quite a bit this summer. The process is necessary, but not what I enjoy doing with my time.

text bulbs with underglaze applied

One of the simpler processes this summer was preparing my text bulbs. I want the text to be highlighted with color and a glossy texture, so I painted on red, white, and blue underglaze and then clear glaze.

text bulbs with underglaze applied and wiped, before firing

I tried two methods for application. On some of the bulbs I painted on the colored underglaze and then used a sponge to wipe it away from the surface of the bulb, leaving color in the impressed text. After the color was removed from the raised surface, I applied and wiped the clear glaze in the same way.

text bulbs with underglaze and glaze applied

I also tried applying both the underglaze and glaze before wiping them away. This requires less wiping and less total time, but I ended up with underglaze on top of glaze in the text indents.

wiping off underglaze and glaze

I was going to triumphantly post pictures of the finished pieces, but the results out of the last firing are not great. The in-text color is fine, but the red clay surfaces of many of the bulbs have one side with white or light blushed clay and the other size with dark clay as I expected. Based on previous firings, I think the issue has to do with either the atmosphere or temperature in the kiln, so perhaps I can retired these pieces.

fired text bulbs out of the kiln

Text on Bulbs and Mugs

stamp holder ready with with the maximum amount of letters

The work I've been doing in the studio since summer started has been mostly glazing work, but I've also been able to start on some protest bulbs for a show coming up in January. I showed some of the bulbs in June for the Membership Show at Larson Gallery. At that show, I sold several and plan to replace them. 

 

First Amendment bulbs at Larson Gallery

Two of the bulbs I sold at Larson had text on them. I had a set of rubber text stamps, but that set is apparently missing a letter or two. In spring, after discovering the missing letter on the first text bulb, I purchased a plastic set of letter stamps. The plastic set is a bit larger, in a different font, and the set can be placed in a holder so that a whole word can be stamped at once.

bulb stamped with letters one at a time

The first two bulbs I created with the new plastic stamps were done by holding the tiny plastic letters in my fingertips and pressing them into the clay on one by one. The process is tedious, but not as painful as putting the letters in the little holder. The text holder only can fit about 11 letters at a time and it is hard to slide the letters in place. If they clicked in like Legos it would be a different matter, but the sides of each letter need to be squeezed as they are slid in the end. If you slide them too hard once they are in, they pop out.

stamp holder in action

Since the letters are meant to be used together to form words in the holder, there are multiple letters as well as some punctuation, numbers, and odd shapes. The kit comes with one single container, so using the letters means first sorting them, then sliding them into the holder, then stamping. 

"...or the right..."

To limit the time I spend sorting the letters, I needed a small container that could hold and separate 26 letters, as well as numbers and punctuation. I found some some daily pill boxes at a drug store, scraped off most of the letters and changed the marking to indicate the letters I needed.

letter sorted with the tools I used to modify the containers

The pill boxes worked well and cut out the sorting time, but there is still the tedium of pressing the letters into the clay one by one or pushing them into the holder. The text on the protest bulbs is the First Amendment of the Constitution. I had been thinking of pressing the same text into mugs, so I figured if I made the mugs and the bulbs at the same time, I could assembly-line the stamping process. Friday I threw and trimmed the mugs, attached handles, and press-molded the bulbs, then I was able to stamp each piece 11 letters or so at a time.

letters in their holder

The process was still tedious and my fingertips hurt by the end, but it was probably faster and certainly less tedious than pressing one letter at a time for all 8 pieces. However, the result wasn't as nice as I'd hoped. The bulbs had an obvious problem, as they have convex and concave curves and the stamp holder is flat, it didn't reach all areas evenly and some letters had to be hand stamped. It also is easier to wrap text around a curve letter by letter. The stamp holder also had some trouble when the text was up against the handle of the mugs.

mugs, bulbs and unsorted letter stamps in my studio

The other problems had to do with my planning. The text holder spaces everything more evenly, which meant that I ran out of space on the bulbs and most of the mugs, though I can fit the full text on a bulb when I don't use the holder. I also made the decision to start and end the text at the handle of the mugs, but since the mug is a cylinder, the text reads left to write all the way around. It isn't necessarily logical to drop down a line when reading across the handle. The problem is exasperated by the fact that I didn't always keep my text parallel to the rim of the mug. One mug didn't have a handle, so that line break is just silly.

mugs illustrating the artist's difficulty with parallels and planning

Both the mugs and the bulbs will look different with color, so I plan to fire them and at least see what they look like finished with glaze. The possibility that most of them aren't good enough to sell means that I can try out some different glazes without too much added risk. 

The one mug that looks more or less as planned