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I’ve plowed a season and a half of lost today. This is not the summer weather I signed up for.
A mug for an under the hood tune up! 2nd generation exchange what up!
Mugs for sculpture.
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Assemblage of incongruent forms and materials paired with the development of new construction methods, and formulating installation has become part of my creative process. Through the execution of these ideas, I have created an installation that references functionality while asking questions that pertain to the body, spatial relationships, and implementation of the object as catalyst for experience.
Development of larger more ambiguous forms exposed technical challenges pertaining to my current clay body. In a valiant attempt to work through these issues I created a series of vase forms. Manipulation of the forms led to unexpected references to the figure. Texture and glaze decisions further the relation to the body. Connecting the viewer to the work by referencing the figure also allowed my to begin an investigation into larger, more complex vessels.
I have furthered my investigation of communal vessels. Communal feeding rituals are employed in cultures around the world. Although these trough forms reference the notion of communal meals they are not yet specific to an experience. Ideas for this form stemmed from other communal feeding systems, specifically livestock. I believe that the forms begin to discuss consumerism and consumption. Through juxtaposition of material and object I aim to evoke a sense of humor in the work. Despite the technical issues that surfaced in this series, reproaching the subject with better understanding will yield better results.
Simultaneously I am in the developmental stages of exploring potential social interaction that is inherent in functional ceramics. I have started a project titled, The Mug Exchange (www.themugexchange.tumblr.com). The Mug Exchange aims to ask questions of consumption, interaction, and the act of sharing of knowledge. The initial exchanges immediately challenged me to ask questions the projects purpose. Mary Jane Jacobs is quoted as saying, “Generosity as a practice has been described as something ‘not done simply because we think its a virtuous thing to do, but it helps us connect with others and ourselves.” It is this idea of generosity that I aim to explore in continuously developing with The Mug Exchange.
Final firing of the semester. Lets do this.
I don’t not have a #pistachio problem.
Geoff Nunberg on the evolution of the words “surreal” and “horrific”:
“Surreal” was a bit of arty jargon until it too became popular around 1970 or so. That initially had a lot to do with the counterculture — the word shows up a lot more frequently in Rolling Stone than on CBS News. But the particular surreality of disaster scenes had another source. In her last book, Regarding the Pain of Others, Susan Sontag noted how often the words “surreal” and “movie” were coupled in eyewitness accounts of the 9/11 attacks — the result, she said, after four decades of big-budget disaster films. Who needs “the irrational reality of a dream” when you have The Towering Inferno?