Getting Ready for DoVA

The annual Department of Visual Arts Student and Faculty Exhibition opens next week! Today some students helped me take work across Nob Hill from Palmer Martin to the Larson Gallery. The trip from the new building is much shorter than the trip from the old building, but with a lot more traffic.

The Cheshire cat looks excited to be on his way to the gallery.

The DoVA exhibition opens Tuesday, May 3 with a reception from 5-7pm at Larson Gallery. Admission is free and there will be refreshments. Awards will be presented to students at about 6pm.

The show features drawings, paintings, photographs, ceramic sculpture, pottery and mixed media works made by YVCC students during Spring, Summer and Fall 2015 and Winter 2016 classes. Many works will be for sale. This is a great opportunity to collect some work from emerging local artists.

The Tiki surfer seems to have suffered a label injury to his eye.

The show will be up through May 28, 2016. Larson Gallery is open from 10-5pm Tuesday-Friday and  1-5pm on Saturday. Admission is always free. Bring your friends and family. 

Rowr! Aliens and fish monsters.

First Firing of 2016

Over spring break, a few weeks ago, I was able to spend some time in the studio--enough time to apply underglaze and glaze to about half a kiln-load of work. This week I stole some time in the studio again and was able to prepare the other half of the load. I'm firing today. I'm still quite a ways from having all of last summer's work glazed, but I can almost see the end.

  

two sculptures in process on my crowded workspace

Last summer I didn't really finish any new sculpture during the summer, though I built a few small pieces and started some parts for a wall installation. I spent a considerable amount of my time preparing for the move to the new studio and preparing for, attending, and finishing work from my summer workshop at Archie Bray in Montana. 

my crowded glazing station

The academic year didn't get much less busy, as one could conjecture from the infrequency of my blog postings. I have new administrative duties as head of the art program and there have been some issues with regards to the new building and new studio, our department added a credit to most of our studio classes, and I took on a new-to-me art history series which required fairly massive prep time. But the most exhausting part of my year had to do with the tenure process. This was my third and final year and I was surprised by how emotionally exhausting it was at the end. 

an experimental underglaze decoration on a sculpture piece

Now the tenure process is complete and I have a lighter teaching load this quarter as a balance to the heavier load necessitated by the increased studio credits the rest of the year. I keep anticipating that I will be able to spend a whole day or a whole afternoon in my home studio, but that time is elusive. The academic and administrative duties that require my attention will swell to fill any available time. I need to actively carve out time in my studio, then jealously guard that time or it will disappear into a thousand other activities. 

small flowers to be added to a sculpture from this summer

In light of all this, I think a firing in April is fairly good progress. I'd like to see the results of my glaze application before I finish the last few pieces, but I am optimistic that I might be able to finish my outstanding (in the sense that it hasn't been finished, not necessarily in the sense of quality) work from last summer before classes are over.

glazed sprigs to be added to a summer scupture

This summer, like so often, I wish to maintain my studio autonomy, but I have already said yes to a couple of studio projects that are not my sculpture-making. I think they will be good projects, beneficial even, but not exactly my creative work. I'll write about both of these projects eventually.

Windows Alive Opening Reception March 25

Join me this Friday from 5-7pm at Hotel Maison in downtown Yakima for the opening reception for this iteration of Yakima's Windows Alive Project. I've been told there will be snacks.

I have work on display in the window of what used to be Eddie Bauer in the old mall on Yakima Avenue (between 3rd and 4th street for those of you who haven't lived in Yakima for multiple decades). 

   

I installed the work a few weeks ago, but it has taken a little while to get everything ready. 

Down the street a few windows some of my clay students also have work on display in what used to be Gap (when Yakima had businesses in the old mall building). The last time I checked, five of my students have work on display, though one was planning to bring work down. 

I didn't manage to get good pictures of the student work, so you'll have to come see it yourself.

Windows Alive

my bulb installation and reflections on a sunny day

Last week I started installing my work for the Windows Alive exhibition downtown in Yakima. The exhibition features a handful of local artists who display their work in empty storefronts downtown. My work is being installed in the window of the old Eddie Bauer in what used to be the Yakima Mall.

hanging up L-hooks (I forgot to bring a tool, so my hand was sore after about the 60th hook)

The space is odd, a fairly large window display space with slats on the walls. Luckily for me, the space between the wall slats matches up fairly well with the size of my bulbs. The process has been strange, too. Unlike the last window display I did in Seattle, and unlike window displays I did years ago in Wisconsin, this time I didn't know what window I would be in until I arrived to install my work. 

my window display (in progress) from across the street

Later this week I plan to bring some sculpture to add to the window display. The space is larger than I expected, so my bulb display looks small in the space. Hopefully the sculpture will help fill the space.
The exhibition opens in a couple weeks (date and time TBD) and lasts from some amount of time after that. Details to follow when I know more.

Sherar Gym Mural

In 2007, some of my students proposed, designed and painted a multi-section mural in the foyer of Sherar Gymnasium on the Yakima Valley Community College Campus. This year it was painted over. I have been in a sort of mourning over the unexpected loss for about a month and I think that showing some images of the mural and the process might make me feel a bit better about it's removal from the physical world.

The mural was painted way back in 2007 and since then my website has changed several times as has my computer. I was unable to quickly find the mural images or a way to transfer the .html pages that described the process, but I did have a PowerPoint of the mural process. So that is what I am sharing here, with minimal editing:

That's our project. The slide show used to end with an invitation to visit the mural in person. You can still see my students' Yak heads on the doors, but the top banner sections are gone. If you got to see them, I'm glad. If you never did, now the invitation is to visit them in here the virtual world.

Kid Decorations on Small Bowls

in the kiln after firing

My daughter helped me quite a bit with this last kiln load. She was going to cut out some ornaments, but then got sidetracked into drawing pictures into the wet clay of a bunch of tiny bowls. Most of these are destined for particular people for the holidays so the drawings are Christmas or relative related.

lots of drawings

After the drawings were done, I let the bowls dry and then applied black underglaze to the surface. I wiped away the underglaze gently with a damp sponge, which left black in the impressions and also served to soften some of the slightly sharp edges of the drawings.

 

two drawings

I particularly like the way my girl writes the sound a cat says. Her airplanes apparently look like unlikely Bert Rutan creations (that's my husband's assessment; I had to look up the guy).

a cupcake with gingerbread men leaning against it

  

The bowls mostly exist because I was making some bowls for teabags at my brother's request. The project took off, but my daughter points out that the bowls can hold nuts, cookies or a single satsuma.

bowls in action

My daughter was at school when I was finishing the decorating, but the whole batch of work is still pretty much kid oriented, with primary colors and plenty of trucks. 

more trucks

Cone 6 Celadon Mugs & Teabag Holders

new work just unloaded from the kiln

I fired some mugs to cone 6. I used mostly two celadon glazes and slip trailing. The results are pretty good where I avoided the non-celadon glazes.

two split rim mugs

I made a couple of mugs this summer with a sort of split rim that makes it look like there's one mug inside another one. I saw something similar in a show in Illinois when I was in the midwest for the Milwaukee NCECA in 2014. I hadn't looked at the cup since 2014, but I was able to quickly pretty quickly retrieve the image I took at the show. The artist's name is Lee Rexrode.

Lee Rexrode cups with split rims.

I just did a couple of these split rim cups. The other shapes vary based on what else I was trying out this summer. I'm happiest with the mugs with green interiors and colored slip trail "drips", but I think I could have mixed the green celadon with the colored slip trailed drips.

mugs with celadons

The newly built pieces from last week are the little tea bag holders. I made five to hang off the side of the mugs and, with my daughter's help, I made quite a few small bowls that simply sit on the table. 

mugs with tea bag holders

The hanging bowls are a bit of a mix-match because I was trying out the new glazes, new shapes, and thinking of my nephew in coming up with some of the designs. My work generally features fewer trucks than this batch of work does.

tea bag holders on their sides

A few of the pieces I glazed were neither handled mugs nor newly made tiny bowls. I had one thrown bowl with purple underglazes under the celadon, and a few handleless mugs or vases. During one throwing session this past summer I sliced the surface of a couple of pieces and then continued throwing to expand the cuts. These I highlighted with blue underglaze and it looks pretty decent with the celadons.

sliced surface mugs

As a result of the dual influence of the holiday and the kids, I made a couple of Christmas tree shakers (with tiny balls inside to make noise). The noisemakers got stuck inside the big one, but my daughter has claimed that one anyway.

tiny Christmas trees