The entirely over due Concentration #2!!!

                      Continuing on the idea of how man-made object correlate with nature, I decided to explore more of the manufactured goods side of the industry. My thoughts wondered towards the question what is the most common of the manufactured good? Pencils! Looking around my desk, I found some inspiration in something I made over 7 years ago. I  had a bunch of flower pens I made a few years ago, and realize the nice yellow one would be interesting the contrast with. It would make a nice natural object that would work well with the thin multitude of pencils: a fully petaled yellow flower. 

The tacky fake flower pen looked like the much nicer flower above, and thus I started to make my flower and pencil piece. I started to make the flower petals by rolling out a slab of Low Fire Tactless White. I cut up the clay in thin strips and varied the length of each one, stacking each on top of each other. I realized it would be difficult to simply add the petals, on top of each other, and found it necessary to stabilize the piece by putting it on a half circle and blending it in. I added deminsion to the petals by varying the thickness and adding some curviture. I made sure to turn the ends upwards, and as I worked in, the petals got shorter and more realistic looking. I realized made my flower on too big of a scale that it didn't make sense to make a whole half, like I was orginally planning, and instead made it a fourth. The flower part was turning out beautifully, and thus I moved on the pencil aspect.

My original thought was to cut up pencils and have the sharpened tip pointing out. I layed it out and this is what it looked like. However I kept thinking and realized it would very difficult to cut and support the pencils having them layered over each other like the petals would be. I considered trying hot glue but decided to switch to making the pencil out of clay, as it also worked better with my concentration to make the entire thing out of clay.

 I started to make the pencils by trying a technique/ tool I have used before. The extruder gun! It actually took a little bit of hand muscle to push the clay out into the clindrical shape I started with for making my pencils.

I tried a few techniques to get the hexagonal shape for the pencil. I tried shaping with my fingers, using pressure from a wooden board, and using a wooden shaping tool, but found dropping the pencil carefully was the most effective. It was pretty time consuming, but worked out looking very nicely. For the sharp point of the pencil, I created it by shaving off the extra clay.

After firing the two pieces I set off the glaze them, debating between how to glaze the flower petals. I decided on an ombre yellow for the petals. The pencils were obviously glazed with black and a yellow orange color to resemble the real life.

Reflection

I am not 100 percent happy with how the piece is seperate pieces pieces but I am proud of the flower part. In retrospect, I have been thinking a lot more of the industrial aspects of my concentraion, and have realized that a pencil is not white as industrial as my current ideas for my concentration.

Pittsburg Visit

Last Monday my Dad and I went to visit Colleges up in Pittsburgh. Yes it was 30 something degrees, but it also was beautiful with the leaves in vibrant reds and yellows. We got a few pictures (unfortunately when my dad takes photos they come out a little blurry), and the park we visited was absolutely gorgeous, overlooking the river.

 

To kill some time(and be someplace warm) we headed into the Carnegie Museum of Art which doubled as the Museum of Natural History. While exploring the Art galleries, my Dad and I started with Modern Art, and I started thinking of how people view/define art. I narrowed it down to two definitions. People value art as a means of expression, or as a mastery of a technical craft. Depending on what value determines what you consider as "true art".  People might consider it pointless to write political slogans on a chair and call it art, while others think it's unnecessary to capture an image people see often onto a canvas. I realized art doesn't exactly have a definition, it all depends on the person, making it that much more complex. Just a thought.
A few things from the museum.

Always a favorite: Monet!!!

Things from the Gem/Stone exhibit that caught my eye
 
 

Art from the Backyard

So last month when I was out sick and construction kicked our class into the library the other students went on an exploitative art project. Looking at their blogs I felt slightly deprived of that project and decided to make it up on my own today. Inspired by the work of Andy Goldsworthy, it takes natural objects from nature and arranges them into a visually attractive sculpture. Here are a few of his pieces:
 
  

Working with my hands after the backyard scavenger hunt(which really reminded me of days when I was younger and would go outside to make flower bouquets) I was gathered up a variety of materials.

Here our the sculptures I made! My favorite is the first one, where I braided the cattail stems.

Another favorite!

 

Since I am now in the midst of my time-consuming module project, it was really nice to do a project that had beautiful results that only took an hour and a half (most of that time was fiddling with the camera).

College Art

On another note, this week I was really excited and nervous to send in my portfolio work to colleges. It feels so nice to get MIT's app completed! I'm a little nervous because I'm sharing some of work for the first time. I've been designing dresses for sometime now on my own, and haven't really showed them to anybody before. Gosh I feel a weird sense of terror, excitement, and anxiousness about it. Since I'm already sharing it with a bunch of people I don't know, I thought I would share my piece here as well. (Also "Don't Stop Believing" is playing as I type it so I'm feeling a little more confident).Hopefully you(and the admissions reps) like it!

Multiples and Modules Project/Artist Inspiration

This project is interesting first because I didn't know there was such a difference between multiples and modules. Multiples usually emphasize color/surface treatment and often say a statement with the way their components are arranged. Modules have many more pieces (our project needs at least 100 components) and is purely focused on maintaing a visually rhythmic arrangement. It's exciting to get into some more technical terminology!

While on Pinterest( I have re-surfaced my account for this class) I came across this fantastic picture:

This was exactly perfect in all ways artistic for what I was looking for inspiration! The artist is Fenella Elms, and on visiting her website there were many other pieces I loved:

 

 

Fenella Elms says her constant travels and frequent change of residences as a child helped contribute to an amount of adaptability and a sense of curiosity. She undertook psychoanalytical training, and  her past career in mental health influences her work: a subconscious approach with clay. Noticing the similar mindfulness of the enabling what it hidden to emerge and the formation of new patterns, Elms says she felt she couldn't make something with just one part. Fenella Elms was first introduced to clay by a Lucy Rie exhibit in 1981. Working at workshops and classes she eventually got a wheel in 2004 and began the teaching that college offered her. She has been featured in multiple magazines, had designs in 2007 which lead to become factory made samples in China, and last year was featured in a review of the best from London Design Week.
Feel free to visit her website, and thanks for sharing your work with us Fenella Elms!

Something Inspirational

So today has been a pretty awful day, and I wanted to share something inspirational I found earlier this week. Matthew Bartiks has become my new hero, and probably my favorite sculpturist right now. I loved how he took simple, everyday objects and turned them into something awe-inspiring. Thanks for making my week better Matthew Bartiks!
 


 
 


In case you couldn't tell that was all made of forks!!!!!Mind-blowingly awesome!