Senior Project
Presentation
Check out my photography show in the entrance to the library!
A Final Note
This is the final blog post. Once I figure out how to compress my 157 MB powerpoint into 50 MB, I'll post it here.
For anyone interested in doing a future ceramics project, here are the websites of all the potters I contacted. I'd recommend just sending emails by finding work that you like online and then seeing who answers. As I said in the presentation, I didn't want to spend my time behind a desk or building my resume. I wanted to use these three short weeks to delve further into an art that I would not have had the opportunity to work with otherwise. After four long years of high school preparing for college, I figured that these weeks, at least, could belong to me.
The OPA website through which I found all the potters: http://www.oregonpotters.org/ceramicshowcase/sc-artists.htm
Kris Paul: http://www.krispaulceramics.com/
Jim Johnstone: http://www.tokinowastudio.com/gal-raku-1.html
Rhoda Fleischman: http://flashpointartworks.com/
Larry and Debi Nelson: http://www.chehalemmountainpottery.com/index.htm
Patrick Horsley: http://www.patrickhorsley.com/
After the presentation, I placed three platters of varying sizes, a long cylindrical piece called an "eda" (branch in Japanese), two rattles and a half-dozen test tiles among the library's summer reading shelves. If you haven't seen them yet, go check them out. The rattles and test tiles especially are meant to be touched. They're soft and smooth. Remember, the black marks is the smoke and the white is the glaze. The blurry parts had more smoke get inside the glaze and that's based on the form of the piece.
In the next few weeks, I'll be getting back my mask from Jim as well as my series of teabowls sprayed with six different glazes, my fern vase and the stamp cup I made with Rhoda. I do have to report one tragedy. My tripod with the whimsical finnole broke in five places and will soon rest in Kris' ceramics cemetery, forgotton amidst the rain and the large canopy leaves of her garden.
The End
Last week at Lucky Spoon, I had a visit from Nichole! She met with me and my mentor Kim to hear about how things have been going so far, and learn all about self serve frozen yogurt.
Clean up, Clean up, Everybody do Their Share..
Although I successfully completed the objective of my project – installation exhibit created, check! – my work is not quite finished. It’s only the fun part that’s over…
Once again, I’m battling a cold type of thing (it’s all a cycle… I’m back to where I started 3 weeks ago apparently) and as such, didn’t really do any work yesterday when I got back from my long weekend vacation. What do I have left to do? Well, now I ACTUALLY have to figure out what I’m going to do with all of the pieces of my creation. Although I dropped hints to Michael at the opening that he/the school should just buy the entire thing from me for $100 and keep it there, he didn’t seem very enthusiastic about the idea. So, I’m back to the idea of peddling individual items. Most of the big items are called for or have bidding wars going on already – green chair, bean bag chair, blue table, and orange screen – so now I’m just down to the smaller stuff. And the bike sculpture.
Today, I’ve been wondering whether I should try to set up a more organized silent auction for the items. My mom has made it clear to me that the stuff is not welcome back in our garage, although I’m not sure how well that’s going to happen. I know I can get rid of most of the stuff in the next couple of days, but I don’t think I can get rid of ALL of it…
However, I think Maintenance would like me to move it out soon, if it’s not going to be a permanent addition to the lounge décor. Or so it seemed like from Kitty’s email that I got this morning… apparently one of the moving cars on the zipline set off some sort of motion detector last night? …Ooops. So, I’m going to go visit today when I meet with Veronica about my presentation, see how everything’s doing, and get an idea about how long it might take for me to break everything down. I think between time on Thursday before presentations and before I leave for the Senior Trip on Friday, I could get everything packed back into cars and transported back to my garage (even though my mom doesn’t want it back there. Too bad).
Christmas Presents Wrapped in Ash
Busy, busy, I haven't had any time to write this final blog post! Even though yesterday was the official last day of senior projects, I'm going back to Kris' studio in the afternoon to finish pieces. Dale Rawls, my faculty advisor, ceramics teacher and excellent potter himself, has arranged a visit to his friend, Pat Horsely's studio too. I'm excited to be able to meet this well-renowned potter whose fantastical teapots, with beautiful detail, capture the imagination. Here's his website if you want to look at more of his work <http://www.patrickhorsley.com/>.
Kris and I have been finishing up in the studio. On Thursday, we completed our fifth raku firing. Digging out the pieces from the burnt newspaper and slowly peeling off the glaze reminds me of opening Christmas presents. You sometimes have an idea of what it will look like but the final result is always an exciting surprise. You can control a lot of the design with latex/wax/tape and where you apply the glaze. Yet, smoke and other oddities contribute to the final expression on the piece. The most tedious step of the process is at the end. As my fingers shrivelled under the running water, I carefully took off the stubborn glaze and slip still stuck on the work. Once everything is off the clean, smooth surface, we spray it with a clear verneer. This will help protect the surface from hand oils that could potentially ruin the work. I'm a little worried about transportation for these delicate pieces. Yesterday, I brought home my two rattles, the easiest to transport, and an eda, the long cylindrical shapes. The rattles, like the test tiles, will be perfect teaching tools for my presentation tomorrow. They're made for touching and holding and shaking.
Jim Johnstone really deserves his own blog post. A little short on time, I'll give him a paragraph. He has been incredibly generous. Jim works full time and teaches ceramics on Saturday. The only time he has for his own work is in the evening and on Fridays. On Friday, May 20th, he showed me his work and his favorite pieces. I learned more ceramics history and learned to appreciate his zeal for trying new techniques. We agreed to work on a mask the next week so that he could show me how to replicate his detailed paintings on his pieces. Wednesday, I met him from 7-9, forgoing dinner. We rolled out river rogue clay and placed it in the mold he had built earlier on in his career. Two days later, I arrived prepared with my Japanese cut-out designs. Apply what I'd learned in graphic design as well as some intuition, I placed the branch around the face and the bird on the opposite side. First, you press out the design with a pencil onto the clay, similar to decals. With some fine detail paintbrushes, you add colored slip to the work. His process is so simple but the final work makes it look like I can actually paint! I was oh so happy. Jim commented thoughtfullly that he enjoyed watching someone else. I took twice as long, he laughed, but added more detial than he generally did. I'll be picking up the piece in a few weeks once it's been bisque and glaze-fired.
My time is up. I have to go meet Dale and Pat. My conclusion will have to wait until tonight, when I've truly finished my project.
last day :)
So today was by far the most entertaining as I got to see an SI injection at one of the barns and see a non-cancerous tumor just fall off a horse. I know that last part sounds gory, and it kind of was, but it wasn't so bad. When the tumor fell off none of us could believe it, we all thought it was a joke even though we saw it fall off and saw the horse bleed after it fell off, the whole situation was just too unreal. My vet cut the tumor in half and it looked just like a big fat oval thing. And as a joke my vet and groom suggested that i show off the tumor during my presentation. I am not sure yet if I want too cause I don't want to totally freak people out, cause during my presentation a couple of my pictures are going to be pretty gory...
The SI injection was really cool to watch, as my vet had to use a ultrasound device to make sure she hit the right spot to put in the injection. If she was too high the injection would only be intramuscular and wouldn't do its job and if the needle hit the bone then the injection also wouldn't work. The needle needed to be just below the bone in the horse's back in order for the injection to work. So it was interesting to watch her try and get the needle in the right place.
Over all I really enjoyed my project and I kind of wish I had more time to shadow my vet. I had so much fun and learned a lot while doing my project, so I am kind of disappointed that it is all over.
Last Day :(
Wow today was my last day at my senior project. It definitely went by way too fast. I loved what I did and I'm so glad that it worked out for me to do this internship! With Craig I got to do a little bit of everything. Senior pictures, dance pictures, business pictures, wedding pictures and sports pictures. I think my favorite were the sports pictures. :) The Timbers games were awesome!
Anyway, today Craig and I went down to Salem to take some pictures of two business guys that worked at Oregon Department of Transportation. Craig was asked to take their picture for a magazine and they asked for it not to be inside at a desk. We arrived early so that we could survey the area and pick out some good spots for photos. We chose an overpass because it was out of the rain and was pretty cool. We also though it would be cool to take some photos on one of the roads nearby. We went to the overpass first and set up all the lights before the two guys got there. I was in charge of holding one of the lights for Craig while he took the photos. We took three different shots there. One of the shots was in the middle of the street. It was pretty cool because you could see the big turn arrow at their feet and the lighting was really nice. Then Craig asked if they wanted to go to the other place we had picked out for photos but they wanted to get back to work, so they left and we packed up all the equipment.
I would like to thank Craig for everything! I couldn't have asked for a better senior project! :)
Here is a picture of me holding lights for the shoot:
Comments
Congratulations!
Tara,
I'm so glad to hear your project was the greatest. In part, that is due to you too! You are so organized and such a pleasure to work with.
Laurie
Day 10
So over all last week had been very slow thanks to the rhino virus. Normally during this time of the year my vet has a ton of work to do. Normally shw goes from barn to barn checking up on horses making sure they are healthy enough to compete and dropping off medicines for the grooms to give to the horses during the shows. But because of the Rhino Virus scare so many horse shows have been canceled and a lot of people are just staying in their barns on self imposed quarantines.
So on day ten we visited a Morgan barn, that we had seen a week earlier, to check up on a horse. The one was having skin issues but the owner and the groom couldn’t figure out why that was happening, as the skin looked really good, unlike it would if it had a fungus problem. At first my vet wasn’t sure either until she heard from the groom that the horse was on the certain drug for a long time and then was immediately taken off of it after a show a month ago. She then reasoned that the horse was taken off the drug to fast thus the hair was falling off, so she told them to put the horse back on the drug and then slowly take it off again. The owner was very receptive of the advice and seemed relieved that nothing really serious was wrong with his horse.
After this barn we went to my barn, when my vet delivered an immune booster drug for the horses going up to Canada for the show. After the drugs were given to the groom, the vet and our groom changed the bandages and checked out the cut on the horse who crashed through a jump a couple weeks prior. My vet was very please with how the cut was healing and was fairly surprised on how well the cut was healing. The cut could’ve easily gotten infective and could’ve easily been much worse, but it wasn’t and my vet was very happy and pleased with the progress.
Timbers vs DC United
On Sunday I went to the Timbers vs DC United game. Although the game started at 2:00 we met at the stadium at 11:30 so that we could shoot some stuff beforehand and get ready. Don't ever try to park by the Jeld-Wen field on game day! It was actually terrible. It was $15 for stadium parking (but I didn't have any cash on me) and then all of the street parking was only 90min or with a permit. I ended up having to park at my aunt's condo by Powell's books and walking to the field. When I finally got there we went up to the media skybooth. You have to walk out on a catwalk thing to get up there: super cool :) We got some food and ate it up there. They served a strange mix of brunch foods: fish, scrambled eggs, bacon, potatoes, fruit, and pastries. Pretty good though!
After some food, we went down to the media station were Craig's laptop was set up. He went through his emails to figure out what we were supposed to shoot that day. Before the game we needed to get the Jr. Joey's helping Timber Joey placing the scarves on the log, the Red Cross donation bins, hosing down of the field, the benchwarmers, and the warmup. Right before the two teams were introduced, Craig and I went back up to the Media sky place were we shot the first 15min of the game. We got to see the Comcast announcers doing their pregame announcements, and then we got to see the introductions from there. Because it was memorial day weekend there was a special tribute to our service men and women. There were fireworks before, during and after the national anthem. They were super cool to see from where we were standing.
After the first 15min we went back down to the field and stationed ourselves on the endline. The score at the end of the first half was 0-1 DC United. But it could have been one-one. Kenny Cooper scored a goal with like 5min left in the first half but it was taken away due to an offsides call. During the halftime we dumped the pictures onto the computer and Craig uploaded a few to the Timbers site. His intern, Miranda, went out to shoot the half time show which was something special for the families of people who have served. Then we went back out and stationed ourselves on the other endline. It was a pretty intense half! Kenny Cooper scored another goal and this one was again taken away by an offsides call. This one was definitely offsides but the Timbers Army was incredibly upset. Then, in the 67th min the Timbers were awarded a penalty kick after Kenny Cooper was taken down in the box. Cooper took the penalty but it was blocked by the keeper. Then the ref called for a retake because the keeper had come off his line early. So Cooper took it again, and it was blocked again. The ref called for another rekick because the keeper had again come off his line too early. The Keeper was so pissed that he basically charged at the ref. Then Jack Jewsbury stepped up to take the third attempt and buried it. Cooper was super pissed that he didn't get to take it again. Then, DC united was given a penalty kick not long afterwards. Then DC United scored their third goal off of a breakaway chance. Although the game was basically over, the Timbers kept pressing forward. They had multiple chances and managed to put one away. Jorge Perlaza scored a header goal off of a Jeremy Hall throw in. The final score of the game was 2-3 DC United. This was the Timbers first loss of at home of the season (because that loss to Ajax didn't count since it was a friendly).
After the game, Jewsbury and Perlaza came out to lift up the log slices that Timber Joey cut off for their goals. They lifted them up and then went and gave them to the fans in the Timbers Army section. It was a super fun game, even though the Timbers lost.
Jr. Joeys and Timber Joey
Color guard for Memorial Day weekend
Fireworks
Timbers huddle before game
Sal Zizzo goes for the ball
Eric Brunner goes for a header
DC Keeper makes a save
Troy Perkins makes a save
Kenny Cooper fights for the ball
Jorge Perlaza
Timbers Army after Jack Jewsbury's goal
Timbers Army after DC United goal
Timbers Army
Jack Jewsbury and Jorge Perlaza lift log slices
Jack Jewsbury gives slice to the Timbers Army
Comments
Elves in the Dant House,
Elves in the Dant House, riding your zipline in the middle of the night, I love it!