Ceramics revisited

After I finished college, I realized that I wasn't really cut out for life as a professional artist at the time. I had no entrepreneurial spirit or confidence and didn't want to teach. I rerouted myself into the computer graphics field and am now quite happy helping to make art for video games. I miss making pots, though. Any time I go to a craft show I go glare at the typical pots and tell myself I could do better, or at least not make such boring stuff.

Anyway, after failing to find a home here that would allow for any sort of studio space, I looked around and signed up at the Irvine Fine Arts center for a pottery class. I was impressed with the facility, the teacher and the level of work being done by a lot of the people there... but the studio hours were terrible. Open studio time was only on weekdays before 5 pm, Saturdays from 9:30 to 3:30, and nothing Sundays. So... for me, basically only Saturday. It is highly difficult to try to make production pottery with one day a week in which to do it. I'd go in, throw a bunch of pots, wrap them up carefully in plastic, and return a week later to find them either too moist (so I had to sit around and wait for them to harden before I could attach handles or whatnot without squashing them) or too dry (ruined...). And, though the studio hours were probably aimed at O.C. housewives who have nothing to do before 5 pm on weekdays, somehow it was pretty busy on Saturdays so half the time I'd show up and literally not find any space on a work table or at a wheel and I'd just have to go home. I couldn't handle that so I didn't sign up again.

I'm still sad about that. I'm sure there are places in L.A. where I could rent space or something but I don't have the level of motivation that would inspire me to be able to drive at least an hour back and forth on a weeknight to make some pots. I would just be too tired. My current plan is to somehow get rich then buy a house with a studio :P

While I was at the Irvine Fine Arts center I decided to focus on mugs because I had never made more than a couple in art school and never felt like they were successful. A good mug is not a simple thing, but it has to look simple. To me, it has to be comfortable and friendly and look like it wants to be held. It has to fit well in the hand. It can't be too narrow or too wide The handle can't be too thin or too small. It has to relate to the shape of the mug and it can't hurt your fingers. Anyway, here are some of the mugs I made during my little study of form. (Gas-fired stoneware isn't my usual thing, but I had to use studio clay and glazes)

don't worry, I ground the little kiln shelf bits there off the foot after taking this picture

The Early Years: Ceramics

I did a lot of crafting before college - probably more than I have since - but I don't think I have any pictures of that stuff, or any of the stuff. Actually, that's not true. I've got a heap of marbled paper somewhere and I'm sure I kept a painted silk scarf or two. Nevertheless, I  have no photos so I'll talk about my first love: pottery.

When I was about 8 years old, I remember visiting some arts center with my mom and seeing someone making pottery on a wheel. I was completely taken with the idea and from then on, every single summer I took ceramics classes in the hope that I would be taught how to use a pottery wheel. I never was; we'd make coil pots or little sculptures or whatever, and I was endlessly disappointed.

In high school, the art class had pottery wheels, and I signed up for after-school ceramics because the brochure SAID we'd learn to use the wheel. On the first day the teacher said he wasn't going to teach us how to use the wheel because it was too hard. We made coil pots and mugs out of slabs.

In CEGEP (this is a Quebec post-secondary school thing, see here for an explanation) I enrolled in the Fine Arts program and knew that my school had a ceramics program. When the time came to choose classes, I found out that ceramics was qualified as a "creative art" whereas I was in "fine arts" so I couldn't take ceramics as one of my focus classes, nor could I take it as a complementary because it wasn't "opposite" enough. I was not allowed to take it at all. This was getting ridiculous.

Fortunately at this point I was 16 years old so was no longer restricted to kids' arts programs, and my mother signed me up for an adult community education ceramics program. WHEELTHROWING, specifically. I finally learned to use the dang wheel, and back at school I talked to the ceramics teacher who allowed me to use the facilities even though I wasn't in any of the classes. I liked making pots. It never got any more complex than that, so when I went on to actual real art school for college, I didn't do so well in my ceramics classes because I just liked making stuff, but wasn't really motivated to become a super production potter, or to make some artistic statement, or to put in as many hours as my teacher would have liked... He never liked me very much, and I never did very well.

We got a new teacher in my last semester and she was awesome, and enthusiastic and supportive about everyone's work. Strangely this caused me to enjoy my work more and put more effort into it, and I made some pretty nice stuff, if I do say so myself. I still have some of it. I also made a lot of crap, because I was still kind of lazy and preferred to spend my free time playing video games, but... now I work in video game development, so everything turned out well, I guess?

Anyway, here are some pictures of my older ceramic pieces... all from my last semester in college. They're all earthenware with maiolica glaze.

My favourite piece. It's got a bit of fake ash glaze on it as well as the maiolica.

One of the first successful pieces, and the first with these patterns.

I think I'd read that it was never acceptable to paint stars on pottery.

I made this cream and sugar set during a guest artist workshop. I still use the sugarbowl.