Now that I am old enough …. (I hit the magic senior Citizen
#) I am able to register for classes for
free at the local community college. How
kool is that.??? I also get a free
parking pass for the semester.
So needing a creative “kick in the pants” last February, I
decided that a way to stimulate my creative juices would be to sign up for a ceramic/sculpture
class with the new professor at Northern
Virginia Community College
in Annandale, VA.
The situation that developed for having such a “Debbie
Downer” attitude was due to having suffered a very bad fracture of my arm. Several months previously, I had suffered a
bad fall and broke my wrist requiring surgery a surgical implant, several
screws and physical therapy. Very
frustrating! So at my age getting back
in the saddle was difficult and depressing for a time. This class provided the
needed stimulus and positive reinforcement to start working again.
Virginia Pates provided that much needed creative environment
in her ceramic /sculpture studio. Even more wonderful were the creative
students in the class. Working in a
studio with all that creative energy was
like receiving a blood transfusion
. Working alone in my dark cold basement is not
conducive to healing or stimulating the creative process. I have to give a lot of the credit to my fellow
students as well as a wonderful teacher.
I owe them a great deal of gratitude,
they all helped me get out of my creative funk. And I was able to accomplish something that I
tasked for myself as a new challenge. I
hoped to make a sculptural piece of artwork on as large a scale allowable by
the equipment in the studio. That is the
limiting factor for most ceramic artists.
I hoped to develop a knowledge base about how to make large sculptural
pieces, be able to fit them together before and after firing and also provide
for easy /safe transport.
So for the first time I attempted to work on a large scale. Totally
out of my comfort zone or experience. My idea was to utilize Large Extruded
Squares, but did not now how to put them together. And more important How to
get them apart! So Virginia suggested
creating an inner lip just like a lidded jar with a gallery . So that’s what I did and it worked very well
and at this height.
At home I have a very large extruder. I can extrude 10” x 10” hollow squares. I extruded about 10 of these each 12 inches
tall placed them in plastic covered bins and carried them to the NVCC Studio. I Placed a damp sponge in each bin to keep
the clay at a nice working consistency . Made a lip, was able to conveniently
stack 4 sections on top of each other, and went to work. One tip to share: I discovered Tyvec house wrap works great
between each block. I placed strips
between the gallery and lip so that tabs stuck out between layers. Made for easy separation. This is larger than
anything I’ve ever made. And was within the size of the studio kiln. But I
miscalculated by about ½ an inch. Grrrrrrr.
My goal was to fire it in one entire piece rather than sections.
So I would like to introduce you to my new friend: CLAY.
Virginia Pates Instructor at NVCC allowed me to set up my
own spot in the communal studio.
I found
an old desk chair outside near the dumpster.
I
removed the seat and securely
attached a piece of plywood.
I made it
level and used that as my portable work space.
The studio is used by ALL the ceramic
classes as well as sculpture students so when you leave your work for the
weekend /evening you have to anticipate the worst and cross your fingers. One
of the other students in the class studying cartooning and animation helped
give Clay some much needed personality and attitude.
Hopefully this would warn other students away
with his menacing attitude????
Virginia Pates provided much needed guidance on methods/technical
strategies about building stackable interlocking blocks for this
sculpture/fountain. Here you can see the little tabs of House Wrap sticking out between each of the
blocks. There are 4 blocks stacked and
interlocking. The design blends between
each layer of blocks. The design is
supposed to allude to fish swimming upstream to spawn. Heavy use of under
glazes and all hand carved.
One thing I discovered in working this large is that it
takes a long time to carve the entire surface!!!!
It takes focus and attention to maintain the
momentum.
I did get bored but then it is
time to STOP working and take a break. And that was good because it forced me
to walk around the classroom/studio and interact with my fellow students.
It was important to stop, look, listen to see
what they were doing. I gained more from them as I tried to understand what
they found difficult, challenging and interesting.
Those conversations were transforming.
It was so good to be in classroom environment.
Also they would trickle over to where I was
working and ask questions.
Good
thoughtful and probing questions which really forced me to think about what,
why I was doing what I was doing.
A rich
exchange of information and fun.
