Category: Uncategorized
My Morning
One of the best things about grad school is the very interesting things that other people are doing, all around me, everyday. This morning I got to watch Kelsey Wright making the third charge of glass into a glass casting in the hot shop next door. Kelsey is the one in the silver hot suit.
It was very interesting to talk to one of the glass grad students about glass and about how the colors that are seen in glass depend on its shape. Since glass refracts light, its outer surface can be more or less like a lens, sending color in many directions.
Recent Work: domain shifts
It took awhile to love this thing. It’s a plotter and a vinyl cutter. These small machines have recently become much cheaper. Even smaller versions with a cutting mat are very popular in the crafter’s sphere. In this picture, I have the pen installed..
After I started to work with larger graphics images and programs, I become very frustrated with my ability to control and draw from the small touchpad on my laptop. I don’t use a mouse. As a Christmas gift, my son gave me a generic graphics tablet. These are now available for less than $50, far less than the $600+ they cost ten years ago. The format for these generic tablets is nearly plug and play with most vector graphics programs, freeware Linux-based or not. It does have a pen with a battery, a bit heavier in the hand than the best tablets. However, it is a real revelation for me to combine this newly affordable equipment with the excellent Linux-based free software. I can design, alter, create, and draw.
One of the last projects that I started to work on at the end of last semester was a “tile” wall piece double portrait of my son and myself made in shades of blue. For this piece I created a simplified version of a photograph and drew it with the plotter onto a 24″ wide piece of plotter paper. Then, I traced the image by hand through the drawing onto a large wet clay bas-relief ground. Then, using layers of toned cobalt slip and LOTS of wax resits, I rolled in my gradients with a foam roller brayer. Here is the result thus far. I still haven’t decided if I need to glaze it or not.
Recent Work: domain shifts from paper to clay
After I made a series of hand-cut stencils, I started to explore ways to quickly make more elaborate, and hopefully, reusable stencils and resists. I started to teach myself how to use Inkscape, which is a freeware vector graphics program that is somewhat similar to Adobe Illustrator. I needed to learn to work in a vector graphics format so that I could generate and alter images to cut on a small vinyl cutter that I bought for my clay work. The software that runs the cutter works best with SVG files, vector files. Vector graphics are different from other images in that they are made from paths with nodes, rather than pixels. The end result is that a vector graphic can be magnified to any level without breaking up or distorting from pixelation. My previous post shows some of the early results of that work.
Much of the imagery I have been working with has been natural elements like rock textures, floral imagery, and botanical drawings. But I also did some work with portraits, more on that later.
To create a stencil that separates the gradients of color in this now simplified image, I created paths by tracing the bitmap using a small number for the color quantities. The TraceBitMap function is a basic part of all vector graphics programs. This yields a recognizable monochromatic image with a small number of distinct tones. Each of these tones is contained within the discreet loop of a path which I separated into different files by selecting, copying and pasting. This makes a set of stencils that can layer and create a complete image.
Many thanks to Travis Jannsen, from the printmaking faculty here at SIUC. His input on using repositionable adhesive spray to mount my paper stencil to the paper carrier worked brilliantly. It still took many weeks of trial and error to create a simple system for making the stencils. Also, his suggestions about brayer choices for color application were a real help. To further refine the stencil, I would like to experiment with spraying the paper stencils with a poly or sealant coat in the hopes of extending their longevity, though the absorbent nature of the paper does seem ideal in making the stencil firmly adhere to the wet clay.
The final set of stencils is three layers, here, spread out over four images. These layers of paper cuts, when properly stacked, can “print” the complex image of the chrysanthemum with only four gradients of tones.
Recent Work, domain shifts from paper to clay and back again.
During my second semester here at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale I began working in terra cotta slipware. After a small solo show in the summer, I started experimenting with making paper stencils and resists. This jar was decorated with hand-cut thick vinyl stencil stock, and then faceted through the wet clay sometime in September or October of 2013.
During this time I was reading most of the critical craft theory that has been published in the last ten or fifteen years. I have been especially inspired by the work of Richard Sennett and David Pye. Sennett’s ideas of domain shift were an important part of experiments that I made in the early part of the fall semester. Sennett posits that taking a tool, technique, or process from one craft and using it in another media, industry, or application is a great, and common, source of creative invention. He calls this a domain shift. If he is right, “the redux” is certainly not the intellectual property of post-post-modernists, it has been a part of the life cycles of technology since before the start of the iron age.
My response was to work in paper models, wire worked jewelry with pearls, leather work, kites, paint, calligraphy, book arts, and digitally created and altered imagery in the beginning part of the Fall semester. I also dove into reading about geometric solids and the intersection between mathematics and art. Since I have little familiarity with most of these tools and ideas, they outcomes were of varying quality.
I began to use a vinyl cutter to cut paper and vinyl stencils for clay slip decoration that were based on imagery that I adapted from altered photographs and imagery from very old Japanese textile designs.
Recent Work, Domain Shifts from paper, to paper.
Around 2011-2012 I revisited my long-standing admiration of the universal craft forms of paper cuts, especially Chinese folk festival paper cuts and German scherenschnitte. During this time I made a series of black paper silhouette portraits of some of my younger relatives, aided by templates from digital photographs.
After making a small series of colorful hand-cut paper designs, I decided I wanted more outcome from the time-consuming and careful effort of making the paper cuts. So, I borrowed an idea from a potter from Northern Wisconsin, Mary Dosch. She uses imagery cut from bicycle inner tubes to create durable patterns and graphics for her hand-built slab work. The cut tube creates a shallowly-indented 2-D image. So, rather than cutting paper, I started to cut rubber with an x-acto knife. From these I made a series of celadon trays. I may try to dig up some of what I had made, or at least get pictures of the rubber stamps themselves.
New Location, New Direction
Welcome to the pottery! In August of 2012, I (Kathy) started work on an MFA in ceramics at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. The program runs till May of 2015. During this time, I have enjoyed working as a teacher’s assistant in art history. My current ceramic work is experimental and quickly changing. As new work comes together, I plan to share it here. I will continue to sell work at Caradori Pottery in Eau Claire, WI, and The Brickyard Pottery and Glassworks, in Barronett, WI. Thanks for your continued interest and support of my work!
New Gallery
Caradori Pottery in Eau Claire, WI, now carries a fresh grouping of blue and white noodle bowls with tulip decorations, as well as some porcelain egg bakers. The pottery is located at 359 Ferry St., Eau Claire, WI 54703. Phone (715)835-8860. Visit http://caradori-pottery.com/
Oak Leaf Motifs
New work at The Brickyard in Barronett, WI
Thanks to Brian and Mary Dosch at The Brickyard Pottery and Glassworks in Barronett, WI for offering my new colors and patterns of mugs and some large bowls. In addition to my dragonfly pottery, you can find my new tulips, waves, oak leaves, and abstract floral designs. Find a link to their website in my galleries page.