Clayative: Blog

Summer WorkShop!!!

2011-06-27T20:37:00.000-07:00

Here we are again! We can get close and intimate during the summer workshop since there are typically less than 10 students (usually 6 or so) and we can really get down and dirty.

Of course, this does mean that summer vacation is kinda over, but Susan and I had a great time in Cozumel. You can click over to the right (Flickr Badge) and check out some awesome dive shots we got with our new IkeLite housing!

Looking forward to some good times this summer!

Oh the End is Near...

2011-06-07T19:59:00.000-07:00

It's the end of the school year again and it's my favorite time. No, No, not because work is almost over for the year and summer is arriving, although this summer my wife and I will be enjoying a week of SCUBA in Cozumel and it's going to be AWESOME! Truth be told, I enjoy work and I kinda miss my students over the break...but I digress.

The end of the year is when my students are busiest. They typically don't need too much assistance from me and I get to really see what I've taught them and, most importantly, what my students have retained. Unfortunately, because of the latter, students are rushing their work and making rookie mistakes, ie not hollowing out their artwork which results in their pieces...well...in pieces.

I also get to push my kilns to the limit; firing after firing. I love the constant need to pack my kilns (Playing Tetris) and scheduling so that I maximize my time at work and get the students' artworks back to them in time for grading.

I do the best I can...

Students, time is limited, but don't rush your work. Good foundations will lead to great projects. Remember that in the studio and remember that in life.

Have a Great Summer!

NCECA K12Clay

2011-04-24T08:40:00.000-07:00

Got all the works back from NCECA and a little surprise too!
My student, Elliott, received the Orton Foundation Cash Award for his Zebra Mask (See below)!

How cool is that!?

Monterey

2011-02-28T19:09:00.000-08:00

Monterey is so beautiful...
We drove up the 101 and the valleys were so green because of the recent rainfall. We had a great time driving along the romantic 17-mile drive and enjoyed the MB Aquarium, albeit a bit busy. Most of all, I believe Susan and I enjoyed the food! The drive down was beautiful as well...we coasted down the Pacific Coast Highway (1). The ocean seemed so blue and I enjoyed the notion that perhaps we as a society were making the right ecological choices. I was told later that the water has a tendency to be more blue in the winter when it is more cold....oh well.

Along the drive down we did notice some "driftwood" along the coast which were in fact Elephant Seals! In the spirit of enjoying our drive down we extended our trip by another day and stayed in the sleepy town of San Simeon so that we could visit Hearst Castle (Man...WR Hearst was a rich man!) the next day before completing our trip.

Enjoy the pictures here!

NCECA: K12 Clay

2011-02-16T18:56:00.000-08:00

NCECA sponsors an annual juried exhibition for k-12 students (http://www.k12clay.org/). I found out about this exhibit this year and decided to have some of my students submit some work.

Well, it turns out they had their largest turnout and received about 1,100 entries, 700 from 11th and 12th graders acrnoss the nation. 150 total entries were chosen to exhibit this year in Tampa at the NCECA Annual Conference and 4 of them are my students!!!

Elliot Zebra Mask:

Sarah's Giraffe Mask:

Kevin's Octahedral Spinner:

Rachel's Tea Set:

I'm so proud of my kids! You guys rock!

you can see the selection of other works chosen for this year here.

Tied the knot: Check!

2010-12-05T19:11:00.000-08:00

So the big day came and went...so did the honeymoon!
I'm a married man! And not like it's an excuse or anything, but i've been too busy to blog.

Many aspects of our wedding were DIY and I it sure makes it more personable. From the invites and wedding program to the wedding favors that I made (Celebrate Series), it was down and dirty and a whole lot of fun.

Here is the invite along with the RSVP:

and the program:

and the wedding favors with place cards tied to bubble wands:

You can also see some shots of the complete set: Celebrate Series

It was an awesome night, thanks to my family and friends. We had a great DJ and Emcee. The food was terrific and so was the cake. I couldn't ask for a better evening...it was the best day of my life!

Best quote:
"Mr Lee, how was your marriage?" -student

Well...I'm still married so it must be pretty damn good!

It's been a while...

2010-11-04T21:33:00.001-07:00

It's been a while I know...but I've been busy.
Busy planning a wedding, which is crazy hard work...especially since I made wedding favors for all our guests.

But for now all I'm sharing with you are a selection of photos from our 1000+ engagement photos. You can click HERE to see em!

Enjoy

Summer Workshop 2010

2010-08-01T19:55:00.000-07:00

It was a quick and fun July. I conducted the annual Summer Workshop and it went very well. Our small class of 7 (love that it's so small!) did a lot of work and made an amazing number of pieces for the month. Some of the students wanted to have a blind-folded throwing contest and that was fun to watch!

We did plan to go to a beach, but those plans kinda fell through. But luckily, one of the students volunteered his beautiful home and we did a charcoal firing. The firing could have been better, but I think the students really enjoyed the firing...They definitely enjoyed the Korean BBQ with some great pasta/salad!

We had a great time! Thank you guys!

Enjoy these: Summer Workshop 2010

Fine Line Arts

2010-06-30T14:43:00.000-07:00

School is out for summer!

This means the Summer Ceramics Workshop is coming! Last year I started to do a ceramics workshop for some of the students during the month of July. It was pretty successful, which is to say, I didn't end up spending much money and that the students had a great time. Aside from working and practicing their techniques in clay, we took a trip to the Pasadena Museum of California Art and viewed an exhibit of Heath Ceramics.

This year, I have less students, but I'm excited to see many returning students (including those who have graduated and gone off to college). I know that my students are excited and I know that I am too.

This summer I'm planning on taking my students to the beach and doing a nice, dung-stinky pit-firing! should be excellent!

Silk Screening!

2010-04-30T20:55:00.000-07:00

Had my new friend from Enigma Screen Printing came by the other day and taught my students a few things about silk screening.

The kids got to take a day break from clay and got to make their very own shirts!

I think the design was pretty sweet and the kids had a great time!

Check out the pictures

Content Aware Fill...

2010-04-05T09:23:00.000-07:00

Holy crap!

My very good friend came over the other day and showed me this insanely new tool that the people at Adobe are working on for Photoshop CS5 called Content Aware Fill. I don't know how exactly to explain this save for pure Photoshop magic.

Check out this video:

This would be similar to putting clay on the wheel, kicking the kick wheel and voila! Instant masterpiece! Thank goodness my creations exist in a purely analog world!

guess the you could use on of these! Yech!

Community : Beginner Pottery

2010-03-22T17:45:00.000-07:00

OMG! I'm a big fan of the NBC show Community and I have to say that the latest episode was Hilarious!

You can watch it here: Community: Beginner Pottery

I too always get stupid-ass comments about Ghost and that steamy wheel-throwing scene, which to me was just a damn shame of nice pot. Coincidentally, a prof of mine back at USC (and graduate of my high school) was the pot guy for the set! That's right! My prof made all the pots for Demi to F-Up! I would hate her too...

Enjoy the link at Hulu...but do so quickly because they don't keep em up too long!

My favorite part is of the picture of late Patrick Swayze! hahaha

things...

2010-03-14T12:11:00.000-07:00

i've been crazy sick this last week. missed 2 and a half whole days of work! that's pretty much the week! Susan has been looking for work still, although i've been giving her a bit of work as she nurses me back to health.

march 15 is the last day for pink slips...that's tomorrow! if i don't get one i'm in the clear and next year i'll finally be a tenured teacher! Why is this such a big deal? well before i went to korea...before this blog/website was born...i was working as a ceramics instructor and got laid off at the end of my probationary period due to budget cuts. of course that all led to very good things...and has brought me back full circle...well fuller much larger circle.

we've finally started to talk about the wedding. we're thinking in the fall, outdoor, and small. should be lovely. talked to my life long friends and i got my team all ready. we finally set a budget and now we gotta pick a venue. i'm making surprise wedding gifts...and if i'm making them, you can probably guess the medium. ;)

it's gonna come soon

She's not my girlfriend anymore...

2010-02-24T20:20:00.000-08:00

She's my fiancee!

Enjoy some of the pics from the Santa Barbara trip where it all happened!

Interesting...

2010-02-03T18:20:00.000-08:00

this kinda sweet...
it's Picasso's Guernica in 3D

http://www.lena-gieseke.com/guernica/movie.html

Back from Minnesota

2010-01-24T09:43:00.000-08:00

every year i like to travel to visit my sister and her family in Minn. boy how times flies. my niece and nephew are already 7 and 4 (respectively)! it was a short visit, but on one of our walks i thought up of an interesting idea...

i think of our society as very reactionary...quite explosively so really. with all the advancements in science and technology, people might have forgotten the tradition of patience. of course, as a ceramic artist, i feel that i can escape all the noise through my work. so this idea fits right in the middle...a good place for me:

i would set up a wall of clay; laid down like brick they would make a nice thick and heavy wall. dimensions of said clay-brick wall would be about 3'x3'x.5' i would shoot a shotgun at it, and in its very wet state, the clay would be able to catch the and record the path of the bb pellets (remember: shotgun shells are full of pellets and not a single bullet). one wall would catch one shot. fired slow i would be able to permanently record this ephemeral explosive behavior

i know where to get the clay...but can i just go grab a shotgun and start blasting?

hmmm...

Merry Christmas!!!

2009-12-22T10:09:00.001-08:00

Happy holidays everybody.

it's winter...well as much as it can be winter in Los Angeles! Kilns are keeping us warm but the water is cold and the clay is colder.

Hope everybody out there is enjoying the holidays regardless of what you may be celebrating!

cheers!

Glazing Demo...

2009-11-11T23:27:00.001-08:00

So it's time of the year that my beg. ceramics students are introduced to the high fire glazes. we fire a reduction at cone 10. pretty typical. i'm trying to have our ceramics club (Slip!) raise some funds so that we can get a raku kiln. would love to just make it one or something, but rules and kids and school...no biggie.

life has been good for me. playing around in clay and slowly creating a body of work. i'm revisiting some of the stuff i did back at HongIk. mixing wheel thrown work with some hand-built stuff.

ah...my DBA went through and thus the beginning of Fine Line Arts. This summer I will be running a creative arts series of workshops (digital photography, portfolio preparation, culinary arts, and ceramics) held throughout the month of july. it's going to be the first time i run a business. let's see how i do this...should be fun.

clayative....dot...com!

2009-11-02T15:39:00.000-08:00

after 5 years of having clayative.net
i have finally purchased clayative.com!

yay!

the 1st Pop Quiz

2009-10-06T18:34:00.001-07:00

yes yes i give tests and quizzes...

anyways, it's an easy one. I just test them on various stations and equipments around the room. I always get a kick out of some of the wrong answers. this years goes to the improper identification of the Slab-Roller: The Iron Wheel

on another note:
recently the thought of the desire to gain notoriety (of any sort) in the field of ceramics has crept into my brain. i always thought that if i could just scoot through life lucky enough to handle and work with clay i would be set. but it seems that, in my life, touching clay may be a given and that perhaps i should raise the bar a bit higher. i spend so much of my time thinking about my classroom and my students, perhaps it's time to spend a bit more time on my work? would i have to sacrifice one for the other? and eventually would that mean that teaching would have become just another stepping stone...

update...

2009-09-13T09:48:00.000-07:00

just updated the website a bit....
fixed up the portfolio section and realized: i need to get busy...
argh

...

2009-09-12T17:42:00.000-07:00

well, the fire came and went with minimal damage to the La Canada residents. I heard the fires were getting right up to some backyards. pretty insane! the air is cleared up quite a bit too. we did miss the first two days of school though. it was nice to get a couple of more days in there...although at the cost of the city burning!

so now i'm back to learning names and faces. we've gone through pinch pots and this week we're going to start up with coil construction.

i haven't really produced much lately. and that bothers me a bit. i just can't think of anything that i want to make. kinda like writers' block if you will. i mean i can make my bowls and cups and whatever, but that's kinda like doodling. i plan to stay after work and have a few good hours of work time and see what happens.

Back Home...

2009-08-29T08:23:00.000-07:00

And getting ready for work!

My last days in Seattle were quite pleasant. I didn't know I was going to be so busy. I just wanted to revisit a few spots from the first visit and maybe check out some more on the ceramics scene.

My first stop was back into the International District where I met Binko and John. They were so nice and turned a simple store visit into an historical experience. And while I could blog all about, this tour i'm going to leave in my head. It was a simple visit made simply into a greater personal experience. Thank you Binko and John.

Funny thing about airport security...
They had to check my bags because I was bringing home some glass. They said that they had a hard time seeing through it. Now, in the world of X-rays and what not, i'm sure there would be issues...but having a hard time seeing through glass(?)...well that got me.

Now I'm back in Pasadena breathing smoke. The Angeles Crest NP is on fire!! Got a few pictures on my way to work. Check it out here. There's talk about canceling the first day of school depending on how bad it gets...and at only 10% contained...

Oregon Trip: Returning to Seattle

2009-08-22T19:02:00.000-07:00

Today I left Portland...I was a bit sad to do so too.
and on the way up, I decided that I wanted to cruise up the Washington coastline and so returned to Astoria, OR. It felt nice to go back to Astoria...because I ended taking the same road back, it felt like i was starting my trip again!

The Southern coastline of WA is not as nice as any part of the OR coastline. And that's all I have to say about that.

Driving back inland from the coastline I saw something terribly sad...
It's real...deforestation...and in our own backyard. See for yourself

Oregon Trip: Portland

2009-08-21T20:05:00.000-07:00

I got to Portland yesterday evening, but before I did, I made a stop at Silver Falls State Park (a bit east of Salem). They have a trail that goes around which boasts 10 waterfalls! of course, the weather and time did not permit me to see all the falls. i did see many of the falls though.

Today, I wondered about Portland. It's a mini big city...kinda reminded me of south pasadena if south pasadena was a bit bigger. and boy i have never seen some many pierced and tattoo'd folks in one spot. interesting.

I made a stop at the Portland Art Museum where they had a MC Escher and a history of tattoos. It was a most interesting combination of exhibits. The tatto exhibit was most impressive at it was intermingled with the permanent collection of native american art and asian art.

I then made my way down to waterfront park which is a park along the Willamette River. Some guys from Best Buy were there demoing electric bikes...and man are these things awesome. They had the more expensive electric bikes and the pedal assist bikes which were cheaper. Something to consider if you have a short commute to work like I do.

All that walking made me hungry so I stopped at Andina Restaurant (Peruvian Tapas!) and had one of the best meals of my trip here! I had the Empanadas Caseras De Carne (flaky pastry filled with slow-cooked beef, raisins, and Botija olives), Mixta Nikkei Causa (a traditional preparation of freshly mashed potatoes, infused with key lime juice and pressed into a cake with spicy tuna, crab salad, and crispy shrimp), and to top it off Chocolate, Vanilla and Orange Crème Brûlée. (Pictures are posted here)

I will sleep well tonight.

Tomorrow: Seattle