Art Centre: January 5-9, 2009

Art Centre: January 5-9, 2009

Central Technical School Art Centre:

Year Two: Week Seventeen

Monday – Ceramics

Remember this? It’s my design for a diffuser (also known as an aroma lamp). Water goes in the cup shape at the top with drops of aromatic oil and the candle underneath warms this to send a fragrance (for aromatherapy) into the room.

I completed this piece on Monday and it has gone to the kiln room along with my wizard’s hat for the “W” book. Both need to be bisque fired so I can glaze them for the final firing.

I am learning more about “wabi sabi” as it may apply to ceramics. I am aiming for my pieces to have that quality. Here are some links that I have found interesting so far.

Robert Compton Pottery –

http://www.robertcomptonpottery.com/Sales-Wabi-Sabi-%20MasterPage.htm

What is Wabi-Sabi? - http://nobleharbor.com/tea/chado/WhatIsWabi-Sabi.htm

Wabi and Sabi: The Aesthetics of Solitude -

http://www.hermitary.com/solitude/aesthetics.html

Still in the Stream - http://www.stillinthestream.com/files/index.htm

Simply wabi-sabi - http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4191/is_/ai_n10044126

Wabi-sabi and Its Influences – http://www.socyberty.com/Philosophy/Wabi-sabi-and-Its-Influences.310663

Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wabi-sabi

wabi-sabi moments on Youtube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDKYOvUIUDo

Wednesday - Printmaking

In class I printed my four-part narrative monotypes. My theme this semester for all of my printmaking has been water in nature. If you scroll back through the blogs you’ll see the first project was a series of three fountains with water issuing from the mouths of an angel, a lion and a medusa head. The second project completed just before the holidays was a series of three collections of seashells.

My final project is inspired by the life cycle of frogs. I painted on acetate and printed on a very thick water colour paper. Here are pictures of the prints as submitted this week.

1. Frog and Eggs, 2. Tadpole

3. Froglets 4. Mature Frog

Thursday – Sculpting

I continue working on the large fusion head, based on the maquette you may have seen in an earlier blog. The head is a synthesis of styles: a head by contemporary sculptress Elizabeth Fring and from an ancient Egyptian head.

I have one more session ahead of me next week in which to complete the piece.

I’ll be submitting a display board that shows the pieces that inspired me along with the resulting fusion head and summarizes the two styles that have been combined.

Thursday – Photography

I had two rolls of film to process – one on an assignment that calls for charting each shot and experimenting with F-stops. The next assignment has to do with a photo essay on “Who We Are” and I am doing mine on those of us who are collectors.

Friday – Computers

I began work on a power point slide show assignment for photography. We selected a photographer from a list and I was fortunate to get one of my preferred choices – Henri Cartier-Bresson. I believe the most difficult aspect of this project will be narrowing down the number of photographs to show – he shot so many very fine pictures in his long lifetime.

Note: This week I had an email from a painter I know, asking me about the images of art work I have put in my blog. It was quite satisfying to be able to have a communication with someone outside of the school who seems genuinely interested and who has asked me questions about what can be seen there. In all of the time I have kept this blog (since September 2007 when I started school) only one person has clicked on “comment” at the foot of a blog entry to send me a message. This was in the fall when a sculptor living in Great Britain wrote to thank me for some of the resources he found in my blog.