Sometimes the Best Things in Life Just Take Time

     As I entered my spring semester in January, I set out to make 100 mugs before May. That may not seem like a difficult task, but 4 months is only around 120 days. On top of that, I was only on campus 4 days a week, which puts me at around 64 days. In those 4 months, I tried to create a set or series of mugs that went with a particular moment in time. This moment of time I chose was swimming with manta rays in 2013. I remembered the experience vividl because it was one of the most exciting things I had ever done. I remembered the darkness around us as we swam at night, and the millions of fish and bubbles surrounding us. As I tried to find adjectives to describe that scene, I also had to think of colors to use as a glaze.  Obviously I knew I wanted a dark blue color to show the dark ocean that surrounded us, but I also wanted to add in a light color to symbolize the streaks and spots of light that the divers below us were shining. This was a color combination that I had never used before, so I wasn't really sure how to go about finding it. I searched the internet and hundreds of glaze recipes to find a nice dark blue base to start with, and tried countless glaze tests. None of them were what I wanted. I ended up with lots of light blues and greens. I knew I had a "Floating Blue" glaze that I loved from high school, but it was a lighter color so I didn't initially think it would work. I gave up on finding glazes for a little bit and focused on the aesthetic for the mugs themselves.
     Thinking back to the experience, I remembered the bubbles most of all. Every time the divers below would breathe, it would send bubbles up to the surface where we were floating. It would tickle our stomachs, and leave crazy bubble trails as far as we could see. I also remember the manta rays doing flips in the water while they were feeding, and all the fish zooming past us. There was coral all along the bottom which also intrigued me. This lead me to these first couple mugs I produced.

As you can see, the I hadn't quite achieved the dark blue I was looking for. These glazes were all from the same glaze, but fired in different kilns. The more green colored mugs were fired in a kiln that had a ventilation system which allowed more oxygen into the system. The darker mugs were fired in a kiln with a more reduced atmosphere.  I was still not getting the aesthetic or color that I was looking for, so I continued in my search.

The two pictures above are a combination I tried on a tan clay. I wanted to see if adding a black glaze on top of the floating blue glaze would create the dark blue I was looking for. This glaze combination was tested before I figured out that the different kilns were producing different colors. This did indeed create the dark look I was going for, but I didn't like that the glaze on the outside of the mug was so sudden in color change. I wanted some flowing glaze action, but the two glazes were too stable to run freely. Now I had to figure out how to create that look on the entire mug.

Now it was too dark. The black glaze was too thick and covered up any detail or texture I created. I loved the rim color and a few spots on each of these mugs, but I was not pleased with the overall look of it. The top mugs originally had a beautiful carved texture that was just wiped out after it was fired with the glaze. Unfortunately, as any potter can tell you, ceramics can be heart breaking at times.

This was about March now, Dozens of mugs that were nice, but not what I was looking for. These mugs above were created with a black clay body. I thought that if I used a dark clay, my glazes would turn out darker as a result. This did turn out to be true for the first mug. That mug has the same floating blue as almost all of the mugs above, but is almost black now on top of the black clay. The mug on the right is also the black clay, but with a clear glaze on top. This one really surprised me....I used the black clay for the mug itself, and then used a slip trail bottle to create hundreds of dots with white clay. When the clear glaze was applied to the black clay, it turned brown. Also not what I was wanting, but created a great looking mug.

These mugs are all including the imagery I had designed to create the visual I had of the scene without being too literal, but none of them had the glaze I wanted still. These were all white clay with the floating blue on top. These have dots pushed in, as well as slip trailed dots on the outside. Some have textured carved into it, which causes the glaze to break nicely into a brown. I was loving these mugs that were coming out of the kiln, and I was like a kid on Christmas every time I opened a kiln. But I still had this vision in my head that I really wanted to achieve.

 

I FINALLY FOUND IT. After months of trying, and months of struggling, I finally found what I was looking for. I found that the black clay with a floating blue and a white glaze just around the rim made the most perfect glaze that accentuated the texture, and flowed beautifully in shades of dark blue, green, white and black. This perfectly captured the colors of the scenery and made an amazing glaze combination for the continuation of this series. This, unfortunately, came during the last week of the semester. Four months of exploration and experimenting, but the glaze finally came. The two large mugs are now kept in my personal collection to submit to cup shows. This series will now be expanded further, and will dive deeper into the imagery from this experience.  Pottery can involve extremely involved chemistry, as well as physics. It looks like a fun activity that would be mindless and stress relieving. While Throwing pots on the wheel is my happy place, it can be a challenging venture. It can be extremely rewarding, but it can also be heart breaking. Pieces breaking, blowing up, cracking, turning out completely wrong...
     Ive found wheel throwing to be my absolute passion, and I will continue making pottery as long as I am able. The journey is worth the reward.

From the Beginning...

     Five years ago, my mom gave me a certificate to a pottery class for my sixteenth birthday. I had wanted to try throwing on the wheel for a while, but the classes were expensive for a sixteen year old making minimum wage after school. I got all my supplies, and I went to my first class; it was life changing.

     I knew I had a knack for art starting in my kindergarten art classes with Mrs. Karen Ciprari-Murphy. I felt like I just knew what I was doing, and my teacher and classmates always seemed impressed with what I made. Of course, back then we painted with our fingers and cut things out of paper, but none the less I always loved it. I continued making art through middle school, but when I got to high school my love for the arts just exploded.
 
     There are some people that have come into my life that have taught me not only knowledge and skills for life or art, but taught me about myself. During my sophomore year of high school, I started a ceramics class at Roswell High School and had the most amazing teacher. Travis Carr, known to students as Coach Carr, was the most influential teacher in my time at Roswell and pushed me farther than I wanted to be pushed at times. It is people like that who are willing to put their energy into helping others that are so amazing. I took ceramics one and realized I loved clay more than any other medium I had ever used. It was after ceramics one that I took my first wheel throwing class at a local art studio in Roswell called Art Center West. I knew I loved using clay for hand-building, but wheel throwing became my real passion. I was in my happy place any time I was in that studio. I was probably the youngest student in the entire art center at the time, but everyone in my class was impressed with how fast I picked up the skills. I was in a class full of fifty and sixty year old women who could not believe I had never touched a wheel before.
   
     I think when we truly love doing something, we learn all we can about it and just want to continue learning and perfecting that skill. I remember sitting at home on youtube at night watching wheel throwing videos for hours at a time just absorbing all the information about it that I could. I was blown away with the possibilities I had yet to explore. After I had taken ceramics 2,3 and 4, I enrolled in AP 3D studio art. This class is where I began my line of work that started out as predator and prey relationships between animals, which has slowly evolved into more work that consists of environmental issues. This class was taught by another influential teacher named Matt Phillips. He was also a pusher. He pushed me in weird ways that I didn't really understand at the time. He pretty much told me I wouldn't do well and that I wouldn't finish my projects or get a 5 on the AP scoring. I think he knew that if he said I couldn't, that I would try to prove that wrong. And I did. I finished all my projects (with a few seconds remaining until the deadline) and got a 5, which is the highest rating, on my AP score. (I know now that he has told people I was one of his best students, so clearly he knew what he was doing.)

     I continued making pottery at Art Center West for two years and loved every second of it. I continued working in order to pay for the $200 classes every 8 weeks. It was expensive, but if I hadn't continued making pottery, I wouldn't be where I am today. When I was a senior in high school I was having a hard time deciding what to do with my life. I talked to Coach Carr a lot and finally decided I wanted to attend Kennesaw State University for Art Education. I thought at the time that I would attend Kennesaw for two years to get my gen-ed classes out of the way, and transfer to The School of the Art Institute of Chicago to finish my undergrad. Kennesaw was not thought of as highly as other schools in Georgia among my peers, but it was close to home and had a decent art program to start out at. The Ceramic professor here at Kennesaw, Jeff Campana, is known around the world for his work. It was unlike anything I had ever seen, and I thought it would be great for me to have instruction from someone who I already admired.

     I am now in my senior year here at Kennesaw with plans to graduate in May. Clearly my plans to transfer didn't happen. I love this school, and would not want to be anywhere else. I have mentors that genuinely care about what I do, and care about my future. I have had so many influential mentors here in the ceramics department such as Jeff Campana, and Keith Smith. They both pushed me to do things that may have been out of my comfort zone, or explore methods I had never tried. I declared my major as Sculpture, because although I loved clay, I knew I wanted to explore other three dimensional media that could bring my work to another level. My sculpture professor named Ayokunle Odeleye knew I wanted to be a 3D major, and brought me under his wing in order to push me farther than the other students. He taught me how to carve wood and weld, which most females don't do for whatever reason. Page Burch is another mentor that has been getting a few of us into public projects such as awards for the SGCI conference here in Atlanta. He has helped line up a project for me to fabricate benches for the Zuckerman Museum as part of their permanent collection, which is something most college students cannot say they have done. I have had experiences most people will never have, such as pouring 2500 degree molten iron. This school has been amazing to me, but I am also excited to continue my journey on my own.
     I have started a website where I sell my pottery, sculptures and a few paintings. I am in the process of developing my website, and gaining a following on social media to promote myself. I would like to make pottery full time after graduation, and sustain myself on that alone. I know many potters who are capable of doing that, and I know I can too. With enough determination and hard work I will succeed in doing what I absolutely love.  The journey I have had since those kindergarten classes has all been pointing me towards the arts, and I know I am in the right place. Many people look down on art majors because it seems like we are taking the easy route. People think we are never going to get jobs, and we're all going to be "starving artists." While I do agree that some people are taking the easy route, I am absolutely not doing that. I have worked harder than anyone I know to get where I am. There are nights where I stay in the studio overnight working and sleep on the tables.. I have skills that 99% of females at this school do not have. I know how to work with my hands, and make things that will outlast my lifetime. I do not appreciate being looked down on when I say I am an art major, and I try to change the outlook of the people who believe that. Art is more than drawing and painting, and more than an excuse not to take math classes. I am actually great at math, and love science. I am a business minor, and could easily major in any other academic field, but chose art because it is my absolute passion. I refuse to sit at a desk doing something I hate for the rest of my life. I want to live the life I want, and have experiences I will never forget. I don't want to be tied down to the corporate world, wearing dresses and heels every day to sit at a desk.  I want to freely express myself and promote change in the world. I want to draw attention to the environmental issues on our planet today, in order to have the beautiful Earth tomorrow.

     "Your art is what you do when no one can tell you exactly how to do it. Your art is the act of taking personal responsibility, challenging the status quo, and changing people." 
-Seth Godin