When I grow up, I want to be an artist

Last night I went to the SOFA gallery end of semester show. There were many pieces up to look at including photography, jewelry, ceramics, and even original stationary. The show as amazing and even had an auction for the jewelry and surprisingly enough, a lot of the stuff was being bought and the prices were not that cheap. While I did not speak directly to someone who was showing in the art show, I went to the art show who is an art student here at IU. She concentrates on ceramics for her major and was very helpful with all of our questions. One exhibit at the art show was a series of hanging busts and heads. She explained that for one of the heads, it would take approximately 20 hours to do (and that was one of the small ones). She told us that they had to be hollow in order for the clay to actually dry enough to be fired and also they would be extremely heavy. We talked for a couple of minutes about clay but then resumed walking around the exhibit admiring all of the art. After we left and went back to our friend’s apartment, we started to talk more about clay. She described all of the techniques of firing the clay. I did not realize there was more than one type of kiln (there are electric mini ones, large ones, and brick ones). We also talked about the different types of heating there are (I only remember one kind, and that was the use of small cones that melt and unhook so that the temperature does not need to be constantly checked). I used to take ceramics at art camp a long time ago and was always curious as to how long ceramic pieces needed to be in the kiln. I was very surprised when she said that a normal piece takes about 1.5 to 2 days. For some reason I always thought that they took at most a couple hours. She did however say that there is a technique that only two hours because the heat is so intense, but in order to do this, the artist has to make sure their piece is perfectly made otherwise it would crack, or worse burst. After she said that something could burst in the kiln, I asked if she had every had any pieces burst. She gave a thankful sigh NO, but had has pieces crack because even if the piece looks perfect without any imperfections before it goes into the kiln, the process of the firing brings out any imperfections . She said she has a piece right now that has a funny mark on it because of the firing, but is going to attempt glaze it in order to mask it. As a final question to her being why she chose to do ceramics, she simply said, “Because I like to shape and touch things. Ceramics is the easiest field to do that because you are working directly with your hands.” Well said.

I had never seen her work before, so she took us to her apartment after our little chat. The living room was filled with all of her work, mostly of bowls, but there were some extremely interesting pieces. She and her roommate have a bar with supports sticking out at floor level, and she created ceramic feet to cover the supports. She also made a huge hand holding a heart that is actually an urn. It was quite creepy, but very cool that she could make all of this cool stuff. I find it so interesting that with my major, at most a couple people would read my papers and give me comments. But an art major has hundreds of people looking at their stuff, constantly judging them. I would love to have something to show for my major like art majors do!

This is in response to the Material Culture (Artist/Craftsperson) project.