Why I gained sooo much weight...

Since I have been living in Korea, I have picked up a bit of cooking. Now I don't know if you can call me chef, but my lab rats have sure enjoyed a little Lee-Cuisine. Also, check out one of my favorite websites: Ideas in Food

Happy new years, folks!

soon....soon....

in my previous entry i estimated that i would need to make 300. well i have to make 312 to be exact. and now i have finally gotten my slip-blend down, i'm producing about 40-50 sperms a day...on a good day. and i'm proud to say that i am 64 sperms away from finishing the casting step. after that i'll be firing and glazing and attaching magnets and stuff...almost done.

here is the funny thing...because it's winter, they shut off our water pipes so they don't freeze over. this means i have to run over to the next building (since our building is also undergoing construction) to fetch a pail of water...last i knew it was 2007.

anyhow, i haven't updated my portfolio section (hong ik university: semester 4) because i didn't do any work this semester...no just kidding. since these works are those that will be on display for my graduate exhibition, i need to install them (frame, set-up, etc) and take pictures then. i should be doing that by march of 2008...

but tonight i dream of only having to make 64 sperms...

Learning curve...

for the last couple of days i have been remaking my sperm...
so per my calculations i should have around (50-60 sperms per day x 4 days) around 200-250 sperm...almost done...nope!

apparently i forgot the exact water to clay ratio to make sure that i would have full length sperms that would take a short amount of time to dry.

see...when the slip (water+clay) is too dense, it has difficulty traveling along the tail-end of the sperm mold which results in these half-sperms.

when there is too much water, i get nice full length sperms but it takes too much time to dry enough for me to take them out of the mold.

so after much confusion, a realization, and some correction, i'm back on my A-game producing away. it shouldn't be too long now. but sincei got some time, i'm in no particular rush...

Don't trust anybody with your kiln...lesson revisited

For some blasphemous reason the graduates don't know how to fire their own kilns. i guess a true artist only needs to come up with the idea and have some peon make it and fire it. in any case, as a result, we have a student kiln master who fires all the kilns...

now...if you recall, i made 500 sperms this last summer and finally glazed them and fired them. well, 300 of them so far. i loaded the kiln and the rest if left up to the kiln master. i should have known better to trust somebody else with my kiln. that's lesson #1!!!

i'm sure you can see where this is going. i opened up the "treasure chest" (as phil cornelius calls it) and saw a horrid mess of poop colored sperm with melted glaze everywhere. words don't describe the seen but pictures would have broken my heart even more. they were supposed to come out a shade of red (not poopie red). they were supposed to be smooth...and not like James Edwards Olmos' face...(sorry that was a bit mean). suffice to say, the 300 of the bunch were FUBAR.

pissed? yes...wanted to ditch the AIDS wall project...wanted to wring the neck of the kiln master (more the latter than the former). but ultimately what can i do. it's ceramics...ish gets f*$#ed up.

what kills me is that people think i caused the disaster. did i check my glaze? what kind of glaze? was it applied to thick? come now people...i have 500 of these buggers. how can they think i wouldn't have tested my glaze? which made me even more irate. how can one of the best art-schools in korea have such shitty kilns? and why the f@#$ don't they teach their kids to fire kilns? but most of all what can i have done to prevented this....

well...it looks like i'm going to be making 300 more sperm. it's ok...it's easier than making 500.


F@#$!

Annual Student Show..

It's that time of the year...



You are all invited...

Click here to see the pictures!

Does this flier remind anybody else of "The O.C."?