Semester Learning
Our 4th Semester started with an exciting assignment of tea bowls. We had to throw a total of 50 tea bowls out of Red clay. It was a fun exercise as I got the opportunity to explore various different forms on the wheel and also by altering them.The bowls were later Raku fird with studio glazes which had different results every time we fired.
Our second assignment was the totem poles. We had to throw several pots and they had to be stacked in such a way to create a six feet high totem pole. My concept was of a candle so I threw a series of cylinders and bowls for the linear for of the candle. It was supposed to be a repetition of candles, therefore I also used plate forms and made 3 pieces, each two feet long to be installed after firing. We wood fired these big pieces but the results were not very successful. My Linear pieces warped which changed the form of my Totem pole. However I do plan to fix it according to the new form but this was quite a major learning for me in terms of the clay body I had used.
Our third assignment was called “Naked Clay.” We were supposed to choose two artists for inspiration from the book, Naked Clay by Jane Perryman. I had Chosen Elspeth Owen and Leslie Thompson. Basically the aim of this assignment was to produce ceramic work which should look appealing without the use of any sort of glaze. My first artist, Elspeth Owen used the technique of wedging colored oxides in the clay to give a marbled effect after firing. Therfore I experimented with the oxides available in my studio. I played with the proportions and each time there was a different result. In two of my pieces, I made completely thrown pots , while in the other two, I built up on thrown pieces to see the effect of oxides in throwing as well as pinching. In one of my pieces I simply used red clay and white clay body to see the effect. My second artist, Leslie Thompson used the technique of coating white clay body pots with black slip and later carving on it to reveal the surface underneath. The basic aim was the use of black and white contrast in the pieces which looked very appealing in her work. I mixed Manganese dioxide and Black stain in the clay slip and used that to coat my pieces. After that I placed every piece on the wheel and used my trimming tools to scrape off clay from areas I wanted to. I really enjoyed this assignment because the results were quite interesting.
Moving on we had a five week intensive of material sciences. In this block, we were supposed to test eight glazes each so that we have an a variety of glaze recipes to use in our following years. We made two high fire clay bodies and glazes of cones 8 and 9 to test on those clay bodies. With the clay bodies, we were required to make 16 tea bowls and 8 medium to large sized vessels We encountered some problems because our clay bodies could not go above 1280 degrees and most of the glazes did not melt. In some cases, our test tiles melted in the kiln but we still managed to get few successful results.
Our last project was of press moulding. We had to make two moulds each out of plaster using any simple shaped object. Then we had to take out casts and create different compositions. This too was a fun exercise as I liked the way how compact forms were resulting form the casts I used.
