You are to create a trophy to symbolize a personal achievement or something you are proud of; to honor a person, animal, ect. who has greatly affected your life.
What I learned:
- This project focused on coil building, starting with a slab base, introducing slipping and scoring method to join surfaces.
- Developed understanding of clay's properties and working in the round.
Obviously, this piece is for Matthew. It seemed appropriate, as so much of our life together up to this point has revolved around his worthy profession.
The sketches are simple: a chalice like form, with the handles being depicted as the arms of a stethoscope. I chose to go with the form that stands tall and slender with a wide, shallow bowl.
This is essentially a piece that I think I could have achieved on the wheel. One would throw this in two pieces, the pedestal and then the bowl and slip and score to join. I have not yet thrown a two part piece, but I have seen it done and seems rather straight forward. However, using a wheel for this assignment would have been cheating, since this course focuses on handbuilding techniques. And so I began the rather difficult task of trying to create symmetry with my hands.
I began with a round slab that would serve as the floor of the piece and began building the form with a series of coils. One blends the successive coils together to create the desired form. The tricky part with this form was beginning with a wide base and then bringing the clay together to create a narrow pedestal. I was (I now realize) overly concerned with the smoothness of the surface and the uniformity of the form. I spent too much time editing my piece, chiseling away to achieve an even surface. Between classes my piece dried too quickly and all my whittling made it dangerously thin. I think I was stalling, unsure of how to attach the upper section.
Eventually I attached the top bowl piece, which I had made separately, by slipping and scoring. This was the moment of truth, testing whether the fragile, dry stem would support the weight of the bowl. Everything seemed balanced and strong, but as I was placing it on an upper shelf to dry the top half comically (and cruelly) fell back on my head before it smashed, flattened, on the floor. (!)
It was all too much to deal with that evening alone in the studio. Exhausted and defeated, I tried to do a quick mending job before leaving for the night... but when I returned to class the next day the top half had fallen over again. My professor, Renee, who had been discouraging all the whittling, quickly went to work reattaching the fragile stem. I'm convinced she used a special slip.
By the end of the class it was still standing, and she had given me specific instructions to "stop messing with it". This tortured me because the bowl piece she reattached had not been reformed well after the fall, and the surface was terribly uneven. As well as the stem she reattached! It was not square at all, which is enough to drive any architect crazy! (The stem appears square in these photos, but a view from the side would reveal how the piece leans forward).
The next class I completed the remaining decoration, pulling long, narrow handles for the arms of the stethoscope, and forming the listening piece and attaching all of that to the main form. I took a photo of it before it was fired because there was a good chance it wouldn't make it through the initial bisque fire. But it did! I glazed the trophy using a copper oxide wash and an advacado 'Gloria's Ace' glaze. I was trying to go for a classic, weathered, aged look. I was very happy with the way the glaze fired and the overall look of the final design (despite imperfections apparent only to the artist). It sits on our mantle.
A few worthy points to mention:
- Though I said I could have thrown the main body of this piece the final result would not have been the same. For have not had luck building a piece so tall on the wheel. Perhaps it could have been achieved in miniature, but this sculpture stands 13" tall, and 9" or 10" is the maximum height I can achieve at the wheel.
- When Renee was instructing us on how to build our piece, she said "Your hands will do what your mind sees". It is such a wonder! That very much is my experience with the process of sculpting. It was very interesting how closely my peers initial sketches' resembled their final work.
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