After a little hiatus, I had some time to work on some prints. I've set up a little printmaking triage in my house, which has been working okay. It would be great to have access to some printing or ceramics equipment, but I have been working with what I have. It's been good to get back to work and create some prints for the 30th Annual Alma College Statewide Print Competition.
This is the print that I like best. The title is Drowned Sheep and it is a mix of inkjet iron-on transfers, relief printing, and rubber stamping. The dimensions are 16 x 22. These are two pieces of paper layered on top of each other. I really think this gets back to what I was doing before and has a good mix of different elements.
I did part of this piece in undergrad, but never finished it, so I decided to work with it more and put some content into it that resonated with my current situation. The title is Human Resources and it is solvent transfer, inkjet iron-on transfer, rubber stamp, and prismacolor. This one is 24 x 18. This isn't my greatest piece, but I do think it turned out alright.
These are my lithophane flashlights again, I just wanted to put a better/more professional looking picture of them on my blog.
These are my version of the slipcast flashlight. Mine are translucent and have lithophanes at the end. I carved the image in wax first then made a mold of the wax so I could cast porcelain in the mold. I think they turned out well. I learned more about the process from doing these, but I still have a ways to go if I want to continue making lithophanes. I'm still trying to figure out what would be the best thing to do with them, but I think I am slowly getting there.
I had thought about just making a lithophane that I could stick in a preexisting flashlight, but conceptually I liked having a flashlight made out of clay. Although this is not a new idea, I like the thought of making a functional object out of clay that isn't traditionally made with this material. Function is a very prominent area in ceramics, but it tends to be pottery, so I wanted to comment on function and its relation to ceramics and other materials. I feel the juxtaposition of the historical lithophane with the modern flashlight adds to the interest. Lithophanes were made long before we had battery operated flashlights, so they were never made to be lit by such a device. From researching lithophanes, I would image if there had been flashlights, they would have made lithophanes for them. There is also contrast between the machine manufactured flashlight and my hand carved lithophane. I think this creates an interesting discussion between the two elements of the piece.
So, I made some slipcast flashlights that have lithophanes for the lens. The concept, if I was going to continue making these, which I may not now, was to address issues of commodification. Well, I follow several blogs, one of which is The Slipcast Blog. Today, he posted... slipcast flashlights. Now, those of you who have had discussions with me about art and originality will know that I am really not surprised to see this. However, I do find the timing, since I just made mine, to be rather humorous. Anyway, here is the link to the post and here is an image of the flashlights. I guess you can buy these somewhere...
After the presentation we had in class today, I wanted to address Marcel Duchamp's Fountain. Because the presentation was about Deric's work, and not what constitutes art or the history of art, I felt that this would be the better venue to discuss this piece of art work. This piece was talked about in sort of a negative context towards it being labeled art and more so being heralded as one of the greatest pieces of art for all time. Based on other reactions and comments both today and in the past, I feel that many of the other students have a similar negative viewpoint of this work. I will admit that I also used to despise Fountain. For an undergrad art history class a couple years ago, we had to write an "art bias" paper. We had to write about three artists that we liked and three we disliked, and then our reasoning for those selections. But, then we had to write about why someone might like the artist that we didn't like. I found that to be a very enlightening experience, because I really had to think about what was going on with the work and what really made in successful in a different person's eyes.
It just so happens that Fountain was one of the pieces I disliked. In fact, I believe I made a statement that this was the worst piece of art of all time. Fortunately, during the class and discussions, I learned the significance of this truly monumental piece of art history. A quick background, Duchamp submitted this sculpture into a non-juried exhibition that was for an artists' club or society. All work that was submitted was to be shown, the only piece that was rejected was this one. He was making a statement against work that was in the exhibition, but also on the grander scale of the whole art world. "What is art?" This question and action led to a sequence of events in art history that brings us to the present. Over the decades, nearly anything can be considered art and exist in the fine art realm in some form or another, including ceramics.
I feel that sometimes we as ceramic artists, take for granted the fact that we can make ceramic artwork or pottery that can be shown in galleries, while at the same time discounting work such as Fountain. The truth is, if that work was never made, we wouldn't have been in a classroom today as a group of ceramic artists working towards MFA degrees. Without those questions, I believe it would be impossible for anyone to gain any recognition as a studio potter. Anyone who needs a functional pot can easily purchase what is needed at Walmart, Target, or any of the many retail stores. But people began to appreciate other forms of art other than just painting and sculpture, because of the chain reaction that was set off by Fountain. This could arguably be the best piece of ceramic art ever, because without its existence, there might not be ceramic art.
This weekend I fired some more of my translucent tiles. I wanted to push the temp a little higher. Unfortunately I lost most of my iron because of the fluxing of the materials. Additionally, the glaze residues left on the kiln shelf decided to fuse to my tiles despite putting down extra alumina, so most of that work is destroyed.
Just thought I would share this Range Rover commercial. I remember seeing this when I was younger, when I would have never dreamed that I would major in ceramics in college. I was reminded of it when we saw a Range Rover at NCECA. It's not an educational video, but I think it's funny!
Last week I attended the NCECA conference in Philadelphia. It was my first time at NCECA and it was a great experience. There were tons of exhibitions to check out and lectures to attend. I think I will make a few posts about the conference over the next few days, so today I will focus on the panel I attended that was titled "Fabricating Ideas." The four members of the panel were artists whose work I really admire. Chad Curtis spoke and served as moderator, and the members of the panel were Del Harrow, Jeanne Quinn, and Steven Thurston. It started off introducing the goals of their collective and describing the equipment and software that they were using to achieve their results. The three members of the panel then described the different ways they have used technology to create work. They all had very different approaches, but they were all using technology is some way.
I feel that when this topic is discussed, many people assume that this will be purely about using machines to create the work. What I found interesting, was that Del Harrow was directly addressing the issues of fabrication versus the makers hand. He creates his forms in Rhino (a CAD program) and then outputs the polygons that create the 3-D model to create a template that he then uses to construct his work by hand. I often find myself getting caught up in the idea of creating on the computer, and then wanting to have it constructed by a piece of equipment. I had never really thought about using the computer to show you how you could construct an object.
Jeanne Quinn described her process of putting drawings into Adobe Illustrator and outputting them to a CNC vinyl cutter to create the components of her wall based installation. I don't remember if the installation involved any ceramic material, but again I find it interesting that technology could be used in other materials that may not need such expensive and technical equipment to operate.
Finally, Steven Thurston talked about his residency in Dresden and using the Mops porcelain dog. He talked about the technology that I am really interested in and that is rapid prototyping. He explained some of the processes such as using the 3-D scanner to capture the model of these old porcelains that could then be manipulated to account for shrinkage rates in clay or to completely change the piece. They then use a Zcorp printer to print the prototype using a plaster powder system, and pull the mold from that. Again, I don't necessarily view this as a "hands off" approach to making. You still have to make the mold and assemble the pieces. Then you have to glaze and fire, just like any other piece. These are tools to use in the process of creating work based on your ideas.
Unfortunately, I never made it to the exhibition they had in the Crane Arts building. They do have a blog that you can visit, although it doesn't seem to have been updated too frequently lately. Nevertheless, they have many great links if you are interested in exploring the use of technology in art, as well as links to the websites of all the artists who are a member of the collective. The url is http://www.fabricatingideas.com/
I was trying to see if I could get my translucent tiles and lithophanes to project on an overhead projector, and I found out that they aren't transparent enough to give a good image. There is some projection but not enough to warrant trying to make use of this. I did put this transparency on there to see what it would look like, and I have to say I really like the way this looks. It is kind of just a collection of different things I was doing independently ie burning a photo screen for printing, printing a hand cut stencil, and trying to transfer inkjet ink. But I think the collection and arrangement of these images makes a nice composition, and the quality of the blacks and grays are very nice. Today I also did some more fiberglass. I sandwiched one of those tiles that I showed earlier between some layers of fiberglass cloth. I also put a transparency with some printed colors and shapes behind the tile to see what that looks like. That is the third image down, and I think the image looks a little bit greener than the actual piece. I put the image of just the tile so you can compare. I think I could have probably added another layer of fiberglass to tone down the black. The skyline I chose for the background is Detroit. I just took it from a print I am working on in Photoshop right now, and I think it is fitting given the references I am making in this piece.
I was browsing around some sites and found this interesting use of concrete. The concrete has optical fibers running through it so it can transmit light, while still creating a structure. I think this is fascinating and has the potential for many uses in creating artistic projects. I found a little tutorial where someone made a small scale version and it seems like it wouldn't be too difficult to make it if you can get a hold of optical fibers. I already found some places where you can get it relatively inexpensively. Because of the nature of the optical fiber, you could transmit various colors of light through the concrete in different areas, or obstruct areas as can be seen in the pictures below. Anyway, here is a link to an article about it. http://www.impactlab.com/2009/03/07/litracon-see-through-light-transmitting/
So these are some clay prints that I have been working on. I have to figure out how these will be displayed. I have some ideas of what I can do, but they will be finished before the end of the semester.I won't get too much into the technical process, but these are all translucent 04 clay prints just like the tests I showed earlier. I did some screen printing, some linocuts, some stenciling, solvent transfers, and drawing with stains and underglazes. The first image is what one of them looks like without the light behind it. It was discussed in my committee meeting that they might be too transparent, especially with the light behind it, and I agree. I will try adding extra layers in subsequent pieces, and also try layering after they have been fired. The final image is what one of the pieces looks like under a piece of fiberglass. I really think this could be a good solution and add strength to these fragile tiles. It also tones down some of the aggressive color. It could be another way to add more imagery and color as well. Of course, then there is also the possibility of just creating these images in the fiberglass itself, and I could essentially have the potential to create gigantic panels. I could also sandwich many of the tiles to create a larger piece. Stuff to think about anyway. Well, more to come soon.
Later I will post pictures of the work I showed for my midterm committee meeting, but I just saw this great sculpture performance piece by artist Jeremy Dean. The project is called Back to the Futurama. I think this a very successful project, because he has very good historical references that he is using, while addressing a contemporary problem. Obviously the title itself references the idea that he is looking to the past while simultaneously addressing the future. Check out the video on youtube. He has two videos that can be seen below. The first one is just some video from stripping down the Hummer and the second video explains the project and shows the finished result.
Midterm committee meetings are this weekend. I think I already said that before, but I will say it again! Anyway, trying to get some stuff done for that and I will post pictures of some of the stuff I finished this weekend. When I was in Chicago, I went to the Museum of Contemporary Art and there was some neat stuff going on. They had this great show that was all about the artist's studio and how the space an artist works in becomes an integral part of the artwork, or in some cases, it is the art. I thought I would share this video that I saw in one of the other parts of the museum. The video isn't that great. I will also say that I have no rights to this video art and had no part in creating it. The artist is Adam Ekberg and the title of the piece is "Disco Ball in the Woods." It is obviously cooler in person, but I really enjoyed everything about this piece and I hope that you can at least get an idea of what it looked like. You can see a still from the video here. http://www.thomasrobertello.com/artist/workview/646/2396
Last week was crazy after returning from Chicago on Monday. I spent most of my days finishing my prototype for mold making class and then making all of the molds for the pieces. I finished them all and they are now drying. Then I will need to make the actual components for the finished pieces for midterm. Now I am working on carving some linoleum blocks and cutting some stencils for making clay prints for midterm. Hopefully there will at least be some successful pieces. I am also working on transcribing the Paul Wandless interview for my grad seminar, which will be a very time consuming and laborious undertaking. I will post some pictures of my work soon!
My interview with Paul Wandless was awesome yesterday. I ended up just hanging out in his studio for about five hours chattin it up. He gave me a lot of good advice for how to survive in the art world and ceramics. He also gave me some great suggestions about how I can talk about my work. Today I went to the Chicago Art Institute and had a wonderful time! I got to check out the new wing, which is very nice. I saw some of the famous paintings that I never looked at last time I was there. Also got to see some really nice prints. Didn't look at much clay stuff haha. I looked at what clay stuff they had last time I was there, and they also had a Tashiko Takaezu show there last time I was there.
I said that I was going to be posting some ceramic artists I like and dislike and why, so this will be the first installment. First I want to explain how I went about picking these artists. The majority of this work was chosen because I feel that it meets many of the qualities that I feel contemporary art should possess. Obviously these are personal choices and my opinion of what makes art interesting to me. The work should address technology, either during the creation process or in its content. It should try to blur genre definitions, although I only think a couple of my selected artists are really creating work that may be difficult to define. I enjoy a clever use of appropriation, whether it is a direct copy or referencing another artwork. I am by no means a traditionalist, and in fact, really find myself wanting to pretty much reject everything about traditional ceramics, except the material, although, maybe that is next. Well, I could go on and on about this stuff, maybe I will elaborate more later, but if I don't want this to be twenty pages, I better get to the artists. I do not want to put images of other artists' work on my blog and worry about pissing them off, so I will just provide links if you are unfamiliar with the artist. These are in no particular order...
Richard Notkin is an artist that really influenced my journey to the "dark side" of content driven artwork. I like the fact that he is referencing the Yixing teapots, which, according to Notkin, contain a great deal of symbolism. This is obviously a logical choice then for Notkin, because his work contains his own visual language that he uses to address contemporary issues. His work is finely crafted, and although I don't believe that great art needs great craftsmanship, I think it does in his case because he is referencing pottery with a history of fine craft. After reading about his work in undergrad, I started to work on creating my own visual language, although with results that were not always successful.
I've seen his work before. But, only after Jennifer Allen had suggested to look at his work did I revisit it and realize how much I was drawn to the imagery. Now, I'm not going to adopt his transvestite lifestyle, and I didn't have such a troubled past, but I enjoy the fact that his work is so deeply personal. The imagery on his pots is aesthetically what I am attracted to. Layers of imagery and text with a juxtaposition of hand drawn images and images appropriated from advertising and other sources. The density that is created from the layering is wonderful, and it plays that edge of being too much. He's referencing the tradition of narrative with these pottery forms. I think it's great, too, that he didn't go through the traditional education system and made his work in a community pottery center.
I really think that he may be my favorite ceramic artist right now. But, before I get to that, I want to address a statement I made that sort of led to this whole thing. I said that I don't really like ceramic sculpture, or something along that vein. I explained that I thought it was too static and boring, and I basically go the response, "Well what do you want it to do? Dance?" Thinking back to that, I have to say that it wouldn't hurt. I am always thinking of ways I could incorporate robotics and technology into my pieces so they can become more dynamic, and more than just an object that you can look at for 15 seconds and move on. Chad Curtis creates work that does utilize technology, both in the finished piece and in the creation process. In the creation process, he is using a homebrew CNC milling machine to carve foam pieces (more on these topics later). He's using light, and water pumps, and fans, all of these components make his work dynamic. I enjoy the blending of materials. He has pieces that contain clay, corn, foam, water, wood, plexiglass, etc. This makes the work more engaging, because there is this mix of textures and surfaces and colors that just work well together. The fact that all of the cables and wires become part of the piece is also great. His work is very conceptual and heavy on content from all aspects of the art making process.
Again, an artist whose work I greatly admire, and one of the reasons I wanted to go to Ohio State so much (the great faculty was the main reason). Anyway, he creates his work utilizing 3D scanning and printing technology. Gasp! He doesn't hand make his work from start to finish you ask? No, and he probably ends up spending more time on his work than most people do. He has to make his prototype on the computer (or fix up the 3D scan), he still has to make a mold from the prototype, then he has to cast the pieces, and then assemble, glaze and fire his work just like everyone else does. He was part of a group called the Nonfiction Design Collective, although now they have split up into two groups, and he is part of the subgroup called Future Retrieval with Katie Parker. A lot of his work is juxtaposing historical western porcelain figures ,that they scanned when they were in Dresden, with rats and taxidermy animals that they have also scanned. As you've noticed before, I really like it when artists reference and remix parts of ceramics history to make them contemporary (this is why I am so interested in lithophanes). I'm drawn to this work because of the technological aspect, but I also think that his work is hilarious. This is of course hilarious in a good way, as I think that is his intention.
Okay, last one. Now, I don't know if this technically qualifies as a ceramics artist, but the work is mostly comprised of ceramic objects. I don't really even care if he is a ceramics artist, because he makes great work that is absolutely hilarious. As you will see, he mostly collects and alters post consumer ceramic figurines. He's using all of this stuff to address contemporary issues in a very satirical manner with an air of irreverence that is quite splendid. Once again, he is referencing that history of the ceramic figurine, and actually using ceramic figurines. He utilizes a mixing of materials. It's kind of hard to define where he fits into the overall scheme of things. Is he a sculptor? Ceramist? Well, he meets most of my criteria. The only area where he may be lacking is technology, although he addresses it in some of the content. But the fact that he is utilizing objects that have been already made is good enough for me.
This weekend I will be going to Chicago to interview Paul Andrew Wandless for the Shoptalk article in my graduate seminar. It's going to be a good time! Not the best timing, but that's how life goes. I will post an update about the interview and my visit when I get back.
Over the next few days I will be posting some ceramic artists that I like and some that I don't and why that is the case. I haven't done this in awhile, and I have never actually done it with just ceramic artists so hopefully I will gain some clarity from going through this experience. Even thinking about doing this, I know my reasoning will probably be full of contradictions! More soon...
We had a visiting artist that past couple days so it has been nice to watch how someone else works. Her name was Jennifer Allen and she makes some nice pots with decorations. I fired my cone 6 work this past weekend and tried some fiberglassing as well. The fiberglass was interesting, although I don't know if my initial ideas or creating images similar to lithophanes is possible, or at least the way I am going about it.
These are some of my best examples from my cone 6 tile firing. The translucency wasn't as good as the low fire tests I did before, but I still got a decent amount that could be useful in certain applications. Jennifer Allen particularly liked the third one down with the Merrill Lynch bull. I do think there are some nice compositional elements as well as satire in that piece. I don't know if the layering works as well with this clay body, although the images in the back are faded out nicely. The image on the bottom was the cone 6 casting slip I used last semester for my lithophanes. I assembled a small piece out of one of my lithophanes imaging putting a light inside and having it viewed from the outside, but I think it had a very nice effect looking through that small hole. There's too many possibilities! I just need to figure out what seems most urgent to complete right now I guess. More to come soon...
I always seem to stumble upon interesting possibilities for solutions to the problems that I am facing in my current work. However, these solutions often suggest that clay may not be the perfect media for me to be working with to achieve my goals. For our graduate seminar class, we are reading Eyewitness by Jed Perl, and we are supposed to check out any artists that we are unfamiliar with. I just so happened to look up one of the sculptors and found some amazing work by Robert Taplin called "The Five Outer Planets." Unfortunately, I can't download the images from his site, but they can be viewed either by going to his site www.roberttaplin.com (if you want to check out his other work) or directly to those images http://www.roberttaplin.com/robert_taplin_five_outer_planets.html . They are quite remarkable, and I guess I never made the connection that these effects could be achieved with fiberglass and light. More important is the large scale of this work. Because of the nature of the translucent clay, it is also very prone to slumping, so the scale of the pieces that I make have to be on the small side to survive the firing. Upon further research, I found that in industry, images are sandwiched in between layers of fiberglass to create translucent wall screens. I am just imagining, it could be possible to make a "lithophane" the size of a wall...
I fired my cone 04 translucent tests yesterday and took them out today. I was surprised that the tile pieces worked much better than I had anticipated. The three-dimensional forms that I made slumped over, so I will need to work with that if I want to make those types of forms. The clay looks very yellow in the pictures (probably because of the camera). The clay isn't white, and I think next time I will only use Grolleg and take out the ball clay because I don't think I need it for what I am doing. More tests and pieces to come! This is the reverse side of the one above it to show how different they look based on how it was layered.
Today I will be firing my cone 04 translucent clay tests and hopefully they don't melt into a big oozy mess! I will post pictures of the results Monday or Tuesday. Then I will try the cone 6 firing after that.
For everyone who has been following my blog (with rather inconsistent updates), I now need to update my blog twice a week for my graduate ceramics class. It should be an interesting experience and I will have some new posts coming shortly!
This is the print that I like best. The title is Drowned Sheep and it is a mix of inkjet iron-on transfers, relief printing, and rubber stamping. The dimensions are 16 x 22. These are two pieces of paper layered on top of each other. I really think this gets back to what I was doing before and has a good mix of different elements.
I did part of this piece in undergrad, but never finished it, so I decided to work with it more and put some content into it that resonated with my current situation. The title is Human Resources and it is solvent transfer, inkjet iron-on transfer, rubber stamp, and prismacolor. This one is 24 x 18. This isn't my greatest piece, but I do think it turned out alright.
These are my lithophane flashlights again, I just wanted to put a better/more professional looking picture of them on my blog.
