I had fully expected to come into Uni and find my white piece in bits, to my amazement it was intact!!! Amazingly it did hold, though there were a number of surface imperfections which was disappointing. I did feel reasonably pleased with the overall look of the piece, but it still wasn't fully working for me, it didn't flow, felt somehow very heavy to look at and perhaps too 'stiff' in its aesthetic. However! the black piece I had felt so much more confident about was a different story, it came out broken, with halves of ellipses sheared off and with cracks in the joins. I couldn't understand what had happened as I was confident that the joins were good and the construction was sound, there wasn't any off balance sections that would cause undue joint stress. What I realised had happened after taking some time to reflect was that it was likely down to inadequate drying inside the hollow forms due to a lack of holes being made in the different sections of the piece.
It was such a basic error, I felt that it was a reflection of where my head has been at and how I have been feeling, struggling with focus, attention and concentration more than I would like. I was also surprised at my reaction, I would normally have been upset when something like this happened (at least in the short term) but I just couldn't find the energy or emotion to react to this in the way I would have expected. I had a tutorial with Rob and we discussed what had happened and how I was feeling and I have decided to seek some support. Rob suggested that I use the pieces as glaze test pieces to experiment with some glaze finishes as I had reached a point where I wanted to explore this. Below are images of the broken piece and one of the piece before firing for comparison. This is smooth black clay from valentines and will go darker after a higher stoneware firing. Both pieces where scheduled to be fired on 17th November, however the large piece broke in two at the centre joining branch between the two main halves of the sculpture due to a mishap whilst it was being loaded into the kiln. This also resulted in some of the smaller disc pieces falling off which I chose to leave off as I was so fed up with the fact that the piece had broken I couldn't face faffing about trying to re-attach them. Ultimately it was my fault that this had happened, despite me building the piece directly onto a kiln shelf to reduce the amount of handling it would encounter, I hadn't placed enough temporary support props around the piece to support it during the firing and one tiny error during handling caused a massive break to occur. I repaired the join by soaking the ends of the join in vinegar and made a vinegar and paper slip from the clay body, I then used this to repair the join. I wasn't convinced it was going to work and I nearly recycled the piece. Below are the images of where the piece broke and the subsequent repair. Below the pieces in the kiln ready for firing, a further prop was placed under the ball at the front. You can see in the image where I placed wax resist on the rims of the thinner hemispheres to slow down drying. The small clay wedges were providing stability and stopping the piece from making any wobbling movements whilst it was being moved.
I enjoyed the construction of this piece so much more, it was simpler in terms of the components used and the overall balance of the finished shape felt like it flowed so much more than the bulkier white one. I was still determined that I needed to avoid adding a fussy surface to the piece despite suggestions from Rob to develop some glazes.
Both the black and white piece should be dry enough to be fired in a couple of weeks. I was still struggling with focus and decision making about the piece, I felt really unsure about what to do and was struggling with concentration (it was at this point that realised that something else may be going on).
I assembled the components of the white piece, it was challenging as lots of areas needed to be supported, I hadn't fully resolved how I was going to balance the piece and this ended up causing me issues later on. I know I should have probably drawn out a plan of how I envisaged it would look, or at least attempt to design a mock up of the components just as simple shapes and what they would look like, I know that if I had done all of that I would have doubtless made my life much easier. I just couldn't think my way through how to do this, I don't sketch out my ideas before hand, i never have. I am a poor draughtsman and have absolutely no confidence in my drawing skills, I hate showing anything I have drawn and the whole style of think & see, followed by sketching then making is just alien to me and massively re-enforces the feelings of self doubt and imposter syndrome I carry with me. In terms of the practical elements of the construction I knew that by using sponges, clay wads and kiln props I could support the various elements at greenware stage and throughout drying. The larger pieces joined well but the smaller, disc elements were much more challenging to attach. I really struggled to get the surfaces smooth between and around the joining points and this was very frustrating, it made me realise why ceramic artists adapt and make their own specialist tools and this was something I would definitely consider to help with sculpting pieces in the future. Scaling up comes with specific challenges, how to support a piece during making, how to manage the moisture levels in the different component parts, how to manage the ovoids to ensure air escapes and proper drying occurs, I used some larger plaster formers to make the bottom sections, I then chose to mix up a combination of elements incorporating ellipse forms, spheres, hemispheres and discs. I wanted to use a white clay body for this piece so chose to use Ashraf Hanna as it has a lovely white colour when fired and is a grogged stoneware so would be more forgiving when forming the larger elements. I used a similar construction process for the components that I had made on my red piece, a made up a vinegar paper slip for the joints, used a potters wheel to create the collars/joining sections. I decided to cut out a circular section from one of the balls to create a concave space and reinserted the disc of clay to make the shape. The large spheres were constructed using two joined hemispheres, I then reinforce the join with a coil, and then use a technique called Dorodango - the Japanese art of polishing dirt, I used the open top of a circular glass jam jar to smooth and even out the surface. Ensuring the clay sphere is firm enough to handle and take the pressure, the glass jar is repeatedly rubbed over the sphere in a circular motion to remove raised areas and even out the surface. All the elements are then wrapped in plastic and stored on foam cushions to prevent them from flattening out. During this make I started to really doubt myself again, I was struggling to work out how to construct the piece and made all the components but they remained wrapped up and unassembled. I also started on a black piece as I wanted to make a sculpture that was a series of connected ellipse shapes rather than full spheres and hemispheres. I think I had realised that the larger scale of the white piece had some issues. I was at this stage still very focussed on a 'complete piece' and that the surface would remain pure white or black,
I was really happy with the feedback from my assessment, but knew I needed to make a decision about what direction I should choose for the next period of my development. Coming into the second year marks the half way point and for me felt like I needed to really start to 'buckle down' and focus on a narrower area of practice. Some of the pieces from my last assessment had been more successful than others but the ideas and potential as starting points excited me and I was feeling really motivated.
After discussions with Rob I felt that my strongest piece and the piece I was most interested in was my funghal/cell like connected piece in red clay. I needed to explore what I could do with this style of making, using different clays, scaling work up and down to determine what that would do. The clay body was slightly darker after the higher firing but I think if I had taken it up to a high stoneware around 1280 degrees centigrade or even considered reduction the colour would have been much richer. I chose to use simple wax to seal the piece. I gave the piece a light sanding and then applied the wax with a cloth, a brush and used a heat gun to apply several layers. `the result was a slightly darker tone and I was pleased with the overall look.
I feel like I have finally made a piece that has something new to say and has lots of potential for development, and I actually like it! Am so pleased to have gotten to this point at the end of my first year, its exciting to look at what’s next now. I plan to look at colour, scale and a myriad of different shapes using this technique. Below is the finished piece I was happy with how the piece had fired and although the pieces were not exactly aligned due to drying/shrinkage issues they were stacking. I wasn’t sure on the exact finish l wanted but knew I didn’t want any colour so I opted for black but wanted to suggest an almost metallic image, with a heaviness to the look of it which would reflect how am feeling about my life right now. So I opted to combine Black Iron Oxide, Manganese Dioxide and some Black copper oxide together, I played about with getting a heavy coating and settled on using an underglaze medium to hold the metal powders in suspension, this made them so much easier to apply evenly.
I was concerned about the potential for them to stick to the kiln shelf and was advised by Cath and Rob that a good coating of alumina on the shelf should be fine. Frustratingly the alumina was forgotten and all three pieces stuck to the kiln shelves resulting in the work having to be chiselled off, each piece is now cracked and damaged. I had chosen to seal the piece with wax so the whole piece needed a light sanding to remove any rough areas left by the oxide coating. This sanding (Under extraction) resulted in a really interesting hammered looking metallic surface which I really liked. Below are images of the pieces before and after firing Delighted it survived the first firing, I knew I needed to explore ideas about colour and finish and want to perhaps look at spraying underglaze. Toni Losey (came across her work at International Ceramics Festival) said that she sprays her pieces and creates an interesting depth of texture through layering underglazes over a number of firings, the coloured surfaces of her work almost look like another sculptural layer. See images below Images of Toni Losey’s work taken by me at International Ceramics Festival 2023I am still planning to explore using underglazes in this way but much experimentation and testing is needed which is what I will explore as my practice progresses. Above are the images of the piece after bisque, I decided to put the piece back in for a stoneware fiirng as I knew the clay body would darken and then make a decision on the finish.
I was excited by the idea of building directly on top of another form to create segments, there were so many potential narratives for this as I was already making anthropomorphic shapes that suggested a torso, I chose to continue this idea with both pieces. It wasn’t quite as straightforward I had first thought because the flat top section of the first section was slightly arced/contoured so it meant creating a base that sat on this and then coiling onto that. There was also the issue of managing the moisture/shrinkage of the clay so the pieces sat more cleanly together, I think in future that I would ensure the templates for the top and bottom joining faces were made quite early on so the size was accurate.
Below are some images of the pieces in progress and after the first bisque firing. I have again used B17C for these pieces but I would definitely opt for a much whiter clay body with more grog in it for future builds. Perhaps using either Ashraf Hanna, or Valentines ES20 which are both grogged but where a smooth surface finish can still be achieved. |
AuthorStella Boothman Archives
January 2024
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