The CSArt team goofing off at the reception This season was wonderful and we loved having all the returning and new shareholders be a part of this experience with us! We hope you loved "Atmosphere" as much as we did and we are looking forward to our next season, "Catalyst!" Stay tuned for an update on the upcoming season!
Here is quick clip of the initial throwing stages. Brittany's bowls are thrown and altered on the wheel!Here's a picture of the piece after it has been altered.Brittany alters the lip of the bowl on the piece by splitting it first, very slowly and precisely while the wheel is turning. After the lip is split, she smooths out the double lip and then lifts up the outer one and presses it together at consistent intervals to create the delicate look below. The Bowls have been bisqued and are ready to get glazed!Here is a close up of some of the awesome results that the wood fire produced! Each one is a unique product of the wood kiln atmosphere.Happy shareholder Susan Hilligoss holding her favorite bowl from the wood firingSusan Hilligoss put some work in the 2015 Clemson Anagama Firing and so was able to get a sneak peak at the results at unloading! It was neat to have both share artists and shareholders working side by side.
It Takes an Entire Team to Run Community Supported Art![Back L-R] Valerie Zimany, Lindsey Elsey, Brittany Wilund, Hannah Hunt, Ella Wesly, Johnny Murphy, Matt Pizzuti, [Front L-R] Deighton Abrams, Stephanie Pechthalt, En Iwamura, Libby Davis, Allison Rupprecht Meet the Teams!Marketing//Sales//Communications
Ella, Libby and Matt make up the marketing, sales and communications division for Clemson Community Supported Arts. They have the important task of coming up with new marketing initiatives for CSArt and putting together newsletters, announcements, and email updates about artist happenings. Artist Information Allison has the fun job of keeping up with the share artists! She creates the artist biographies, sets up Q&A meetings, creates the artist contracts and photographs the artist share pieces. Allison is also a Spring 2015 share artist! Web//Social Media Hannah and Brittany take care of the Web/Social Media side of CSArt. Hannah updates the website with new information, posters, and graphics and helps with blog posts. Brittany documents the artists’ process and progress throughout the semester and updates Instagram and Facebook posts with fun tid-bits of information and sneak peeks for you to enjoy along with writing the process blog posts about the artists! Brittany is also a Spring 2015 share artist! Event/ Packaging//Graphic Design Johnny and Stephanie are in charge of Event, Packaging, and Design! They help plan the pickup event, package the shares in share crates, organize music and create some fun graphics for the website and posters. These specialized teams help organize goals and tasks, increase efficiency, and utilize particular skill sets within our program. While these teams may work independently on projects, there is a lot of overlap and collaboration. It takes a team's unified effort to roll out each season! We hope you like this season and we can't wait to roll out the next one! En is Known Around the Studio as "Mr. Pinch"En create's his share pieces, and all of his other work, through coil building and pinching. This pinching ranges from something smaller like the sharepieces to floor to sculptures that stretch all the way to the ceiling! En's work is pinched, bisqued, and awaiting Underglaze Painting!Some Examples of En's Larger PiecesHere's En carefully painting those detailed pieces!Painting his forms very intricately is a very signature part of En's work. En uses different colored underglazes to compliment the three dimensional forms and add another layer of meaning to his work. A Glimpse at the Final Result!Allison's pieces are wheel thrown and altered on the wheel. The first important step in her process is obtaining the silhouette for the piece. Next, she creates textured handles for the pieces and connects them before sending them off to bisque! Allison's Precise Glazing in ActionAllison's Share Pieces in the Greenware Stage Awaiting Bisque!Allison glazes her pieces first by pouring and dipping them to get an overall base, and then carefully uses a dropper to create unique the polka dots and stripes. Here's What the Glazed Pieces Look Like Before They're Fired!All That Precise Glazing Pays off in the End!Allison fires her work in a gas reduction kiln in order to pull those pinks and reds into the final glaze result. Those precise small dots and lines melt and add a more organic atmosphere to these spunky pieces.
A couple weekends ago, I basically lived every ceramic enthusiast's dream, I was able to take a break from studio and go to Providence, Rhode Island for the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts annual conference. First off Providence is beautiful, it is stuffed full of history and quirk as if each brick has a history and story to tell. I was able to ignore the dreary weather by taking many coffee breaks, yet never walking into a chain or repeating coffee shops. It is now on the list of cities I could see myself moving to someday. It was love.
Sooo NCECA. It was Mud. I guess I'll explain for non-ceramics people what a national ceramics convention looks like. It looks like thousands of artists, teachers and students, vibrant with personality and passion coming together to share ideas, listen to lectures, watch demonstrations by world-renowned artists and shop for the latest tool or program of study. My favorite part of the weekend was the lectures, I went to as many as I could fit into the hectic schedule. I heard fellow undergraduate Djnnaya Stroud speak about the revolution of ornamentation and how the details confront the audience in a subversive manner. I also went to many lectures on topics centered around art and education and social learning and activism, speakers ranging from the loved Chris Staley of Penn State to the lesser known Michael McCarthy of the Austin Riggs residential psychiatric center. By attending the many lectures I was able to learn about and explore topics that are relevant to my hopeful future that I would not otherwise have even considered. When not in lectures or coffee shops, we went to exhibits associated with the conference. NCECA has a Biannual and a National Student Juried Show each year, which are the best of the best. Here are some pics of beauties I saw along the way. -Becca Beaird Fall 2014 CSArt Team Member Lindsey Busy Building the Cage for the New Raku Kiln!Lindsey has been working on building this new Raku kiln for the Clemson Ceramic Department this semester. Below, Lindsey is cutting up Kaowool to line the inside of the removable cage top of the kiln. The Kaowool is a heat resistant ceramic fiber blanket that will hold in the heat the same way a brick top would but allows for quick removal of the pieces at peak temperature. The Raku Kiln in action!The Raku Kiln Creates Unique and Unpredictable Glaze Atmospheres!The pieces are glazed and put into Raku kiln that has an easily removable cage top [pictured above] and then taken out at the peak of firing. Taking the piece out of the kiln at a molten hot point and putting it in a closed metal container filled with newspaper causes an intense post-fire reduction that gives the pieces that beautiful intense glaze variation you see below.
NCECA 2015 was an incredible whirlwind. There's something indescribable about suddenly finding yourself in the midst of hundreds of people who share your passions and know exactly what you're talking about when you say the cup you're holding was fired in an Anagama kiln. The ceramics community never ceases to amaze me; people are so supportive of each other, and so willing to share their knowledge and I was very eager to observe and learn. Something that sparked my interest in particular was a pop-up gallery inside of a moving truck that CSArt Member, Hannah and I stumbled upon while wandering around the Rhode Island School of Design. The various creative ways ceramic artists find to display their artwork is so fascinating to me and has certainly influenced how I've thought about promoting myself outside of school. Check it out! Along with the pop-up galleries, the featured NCECA galleries located at the Rhode Island School of Design were another favorite of mine. Much of the work I saw helped me understand ways I could further push my own work, and seeing what other undergraduate students are working on at other schools is always a nice reference point. Here are some images of the RISD galleries! NCECA 2015 was an invaluable experience that I feel helped me grow significantly as an artist in three short days. I was able to see the work of multiple artists at various stages in their careers and experience the largest ceramics community I've ever been a part of. These are the experiences I believe are most important in a student's career and I am so thankful that the CSArt Creative Inquiry allowed me to have this opportunity.
-Hallie Shafer Fall 2014 CSArt Team Member Upon returning from NCECA and the enchanting New England city of Providence, there is much to reflect on. While sitting behind the single bright orange table that could be found, I did not expect how energizing it would be to share my passion for my local ceramics community and CSArt. As a marketing major, it was surprising how natural it felt to take what I have learned from the past three years in the classroom and use those skills to sell something that I am enthusiastic about - the Clemson Art Department and Community Supported Art!
During my wanderings around the city, I found myself drawing inspiration from everything that I happened to stumble upon. As a marketing team member, I look forward to taking these inspirations and experiences and utilizing them to continue to better serve you as a community member through CSArt! -Hannah Hunt CSArt Team Member |
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