ok...so here they are...

this semester i really worked on two things. 1: the use of cylinders, and 2: glazes that weren't the typical glazes. more experimentation in the latter is definitely in effect.


basically with the glazes...i was thinking about a question that one of my prof. put out there: what is ceramics? -most materials that come from the earth are ceramics. but a series are "ceramic" artists were presented to us which made me wonder about glazes. initial experimention began with a plaster-based glaze which i had received a recipe for...but after many failed attempts to get what i was trying to get, which is a rough and crusty glaze (but i will still continue to work on that) i started to think about simply using clays (in the form of slip - clay in liquid suspension), oxides and salt water to create my glaze. the end result is what you will see on the three large tubules.

Tubules

one day i decided to work my hands out a bit on some handbuilding. to tell you the
truth, i was getting a bit bored of the wheel. i wanted to keep working with the idea of tubules (of sorts) and created these guys ala philip cornelius belt-coiling method. i have to admit that i really like that method...thanks phil. these guys were fired three times (all at very low temperatures) and have a very rough and matte finish. i'm quite happy with these fellas. the multiple firings add a nice deep sense of dimension (with each firing i added some more color and texture)

these last two were probably my favorite. but in the picture above you might have noticed a bright-red pair of lucious lips. well...yes...i'm guilty of that one two. one of our professors provided us the theme: laugh. so i made the those lips and a series of little smiling tubes (click here for the smiling lips in action. warning: kinda lame)

i was exploring with some cylinderical pieces and my prof. told me to cut them up and re-attach them or to do something else with them since they were too simple. (makes sense since they are cylinders afterall...) but while i was working on something i dropped it. but i love how accidents work in my favor because from that incident came the idea of attaching two cylinders to create cups.

and finally, while spending some hours - bored - i was staring into the cylinders and thought about how cool the insides looked but how nobody would ever really look into them (but they might blow into them!). I thought of the impact of making the insides of pots more visible. and how might i do that. i'm still thinking about how i could do this more effectively but here are just a how that i've worked on so far...

i've got more, but i didn't shoot em all yet. i have to take some more photos that are suitable for portfolio use so i'll share that when i get those done.