"DIY" assignment 3

How to Make Horse Hair Pottery:



1. Obtain horse hair. Ask horse owners if you do not have a horse of your own. You only need a very small amount for each piece of pottery.

2. Use low-fire clay pots. These pots must have small openings to create a large surface to decorate with horsehair. Small openings also reduce the tendency for the clay to crack.

3. Throw the clay pots so that they are thin and remove any excess clay. Trim with a knife and smooth the surfaces as necessary.

4. Prepare the pot for the burnishing by rubbing baby oil into it and then dampening it with a wet rag. Sand the pot completely with an extremely fine sandpaper.

5. Rub the entire surface of your pottery with a polished stone.

6. Place the burnished pot into a raku kiln and heat it to approximately 1,400 degrees F. Remove after approximately 20 minutes and drop one horse hair at a time onto the pot until you have the desired marking pattern. The horse hair will sizzle and leave a thin fuzzy black mark where it touches.

7. Cool the pot and then brush off the horse hairs. If you are unsatisfied with the pattern, reheat the pot and start over.

8. Experiment with different horse hair markings. Some potters prefer to layer hairs all over the pottery, while others choose certain sections, such as the lower edges of the pottery, to decorate with the horse hair marks.






new artists -
Clark Sorensen
I stumbled upon his work while surfing the web for ideas, and was instantly intrigued by his designs, and their practicality. Clark Sorensen grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Sculpture with honors from the University of Utah. He lived in France for two years before moving to California. After college, Clark worked a short while as a costume designer and illustrator. He then became a computer animator, working primarily on video games. His skills have contributed to the creation of over 20 games during his 15 years in the video game industry. Sculpting and painting have always been a part-time passion for Clark but for the past 5 years he has devoted his full attention to creating art. He has been receiving worldwide attention for his unique series of urinal sculptures. His work has been featured in numerous magazines and papers throughout the world.

Faith Ringgold
Faith Ringgold was born and raised in Harlem and educated at the City College of New York, where she studied with Robert Gathmey and Yasuo Kuniyoshi. She received an M.A. from the college in 1959. She was greatly influenced by the fabric she worked with at home with her mother, who was a fashion designer, and has used fabric in many of her artworks. She is especially well-known for her painted story quilts which blur the line between "high art" and "craft" by combining painting, quilted fabric, and storytelling. She modeled her "story quilts" on the Buddhist Thangkas, lovely pictures painted on fabric and quilted or brocaded, which could then be easily rolled up and transported. She has influenced numerous modern artists, including Linda Freeman, and known some of the greatest African American artists personally, including Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence, and Betye Saar. Her work is in the permanent collection of many museums including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and other museums, mostly in New York City. In addition, Ringgold has written and illustrated seventeen children's books including Tar Beach and has exhibited in major museums all over the world. She is professor emeritus in the University of California, San Diego visual art department. Ringgold was also the plaintiff in a significant copyright case, Ringgold v. Black Entertainment Television. Black Entertainment Television (BET) had aired several episodes of the television series "Roc" in which a Ringgold poster was shown on nine different occasions for a total of 26.75 seconds. Ringgold sued for copyright infringement. The court found BET liable for copyright infringement, rejecting the de minimis defense raised by BET, which had argued that the use of Ringgold's copyrighted work was so minimal that it did not constitute an infringement. Ringgold and her daughter, the writer Michele Wallace, were founding members of the National Black Feminist Organization. Ringgold is represented by ACA Gallery. Her second daughter Barbara also has a website selling Faith Ringgold's works at affordable prices.

crit notes, sorry its late!

So I aparently do not know how to manage time and unfortunately did not have as much time as I thought I might have to devote to each piece. Here is what I did manage to get written down :D

Steph - Zombie bite movie
-all the wounds were well done and convincing, use of liquid latex?
-effective use of stop motion-feel to convey passage of time
-transitions from stop motion to normal were a bit odd, hard for my mind to hold on/keep up

Ben - Monsters
-The photo has a surreal feeling to it, so the incorporation of the beasts feels natural/convincing, they are well placed/incorporated into their surrongdings - believable
-perspective on monsters makes them bigger than Ben, moves them deeper into the picture
-feeling of watching/hiding inside another building makes you feel like part of the scene as it appears to play out

Dani - Touch my skin
-lines and thread appear as veins and texture of book makes it seem like skin... is it human? o.O (before explanation)
-the threads add an extra layer and give the piece more depth/texture
-loose threads feel a bit detached due to difference in texture, mayps a coating for them as well?
-I would love to view the piece knowing what the title means, but after finding out the meaning behind the use of French, perhaps a seperate explanation for those of us not fluent in french would allow other artists to understand more of the Duchamp reference? I know you wanted a target audience, but possibly widen it a bit?

Phil - wood pieces
-stand alone trunk creates a nice shilouete, has a strong presence. reflective coating makes it look as if it's some other material made to look like wood, but our minds know it was once a tree
-collage piece with wires utilizes natural elements to create something you would never actualy find in nature.
-the branches are plugged into one another - i read it as showing today's society's dependance on technology. Similar to people going on a comping trip and longing for the comforts outlets can provide, being able to plug into the natural energy that is harnessed by trees

Cotton Candy
-clash between our minds reading them as soft and fluffy, and the solidness of the clay makes the viewer long for confirmatino through another sense - touch
-loce that they are so touchable, breaks the wall between the viewer and the rules of the gallery one might find them in

Esteban - wooden hill
-the shape comunicates an organic form, but the roughness of the cuts help to show the mark of the maker, handmade quality
-eventual taller-than-the-viewer size will add a sense of something small becoming big, while in reality, the city on top helps one realize it is actually something big made small.
-good that support syestem is hidden, makes structure appear more solid

Justin - human forms
-handprints suggest violence, or pain in the heat of passion, perhaps a different color to communicate passion? purple?
-KY lube is unnecessary, sexual context is clearly conveyed by the piece alone
-smaller figure could perhaps be turned around, trying not to think about something generaly means avoiding looking at it.
-need for smaller form? The larger form communicates most of the ideas behind the piece effectively on its own
-placement of silk? should the small figure be on it? places him on the same plane of existance as the 'thouhgt'
-light focused on one form or the other? helps to separate them as thought/reality

"The Surrond"

1. In studio: When I came in for the first class this semester, I found my shelf cleaned off, and my clay, bone dry, in chunks. Instead of being upset by the loss of aged porcelain, I realized the possibilities contained within the dried pieces. I thought of how ancient peoples carved many of the things they made, and of how soft the porcelain I had on hand was. I have a great many thought behind this project, but I cant seem to make a single, cohesive thought to sum it up. Here is what I have written in my sketchbook:
-idea of time decreasing, then adding value to an object (vintage/antique/old/worn out)
-recycling vs. putting things on display/preservation: if we continue saving everything, we will eventually run out of resources
-trash may last a long time, but it returns to the earth, creating new resources, etc, as does something recycled many times over, but by preserving things we stop this natural process
-would melting down ancient pieces of metal make it more readily available in today's society? decrease their value?
-humans are the only species that save old things to this extent. animals may hold a place as valuable, like elephants with their graveyards, but they do not cling to objects.
-basic recycling of dried out clay has saved it from being thrown away, but is it now removed from the cycle entirely from the cycle? preserved?
-animals represent ancient artifacts/idols found preserved in temples, and difference between animals and humans practices of recycling.
-if we continue to preserving EVERYTHING, will archaeologists eventually run out of things to discover? level of preservation in society. versus examples in Pompeii, egypt, etc, where technology could not preserve everything permanently.

2. dream..... dream.... you know, I haven't dreamed in a good while. When I do dream, it is always very surreal, but many of them contain a sense of recognition from people I feel like i really know, of places I have been, despite the knowledge that nothing is as it is in reality.
3. When I was young, and still did not understand the importance of visiting museums, hence, complained quite a lot, my parents took me to see one of Dale Chihuly's exhibits. One of the pieces was a huge collection of blown glass surrounding an entire room, with a glass panel as the floor so that the viewer could stand, completely surronded by the colors and forms the glass created. I was young enough that i do not remember where it was, how old I was, where we were living, or, until I asked my parents recently, the artist's name. I did, however, remember the feeling of standing in this room, similar to looking up at a starry night, a part of something bigger, yet, completely insignificant.



ロビンより

new direction

While I still plan to make the first project later, I found lumps of dry clay left from last spring, and I could not resist making them into something more. I have an entire idea behind the project that has come forth, and Will share at Crit.

"What is it?"

This summer I spent working at the local quilt store near my parent’s house in Northern Virginia. My boss has been designing quilts, and fabric specifically for quilting since before I was born. She started when she was living in Africa and making quilts out of any and all scraps she could come across. She has lead the way in the movement bringing quilting into the art world, and has been a huge inspiration to me. As far as getting art work done this summer, I did get a few quilt tops pieced, and a few projects quilted, but found myself staying inside the realm of quilting and getting no other art work done all summer! This experience is wonderful for me to have, however, as I plan on incorporating as much of my knowledge of the quilting world into what I make as an artist.

Also over the summer I got to talk to a different sort of quilt artist named Paula Nadelstern. She designs quilts and fabrics based around kaleidoscopic designs. She recently had an exhibit up in New York, and is gaining recognition within the art community, as well as the quilting community.