Thursday, September 25, 2014

Studio Works!

I've been busy in the studio and getting ready to go to Kohler in a week and a half.  I'm trying to finish my work for an upcoming exhibition before I leave, so it has been a bit crazy.  You can check out the show at ArtStart in Rhinelander, WI starting November 30th.  Here is some of the work in progress.

Many thanks to Reid Schoonover and Pat for the use of the shop and their help in making the forms.  It never would have been level without your help!  The cookies were great too.


This is one of two free standing wooden forms.  The bells will balance from this piece and I should have some working wall pieces put together soon to test out the balance. 

I hope to have about a hundred bells.  They are found bells from the thrift store, their hand made replicas and cast multiples.  Some of these are complete and strung together, but some are yet to be fired.

This image shows bits and pieces of three pieces.  I feel like a frantic making machine and then I have to slow down and focus on drawing for a while.  Most of the drawings are from old family photographs and take a lot of drawing and redrawing over and over.  The images overlap with those of strangers and everyday objects that have some significance to the past of my memory.

I've been thinking about the images a lot and in a way am getting to know them through the process of drawing.  When I was sifting through the photos, my daughter would ask me who they were and then would ask if they were dead.  The images are recreating an untouchable past in some way.
Then the images are drawn on the porcelain forms with pencil and after that with glaze pencil before they are glazed.  I have some finished test pieces and there are three others in the kiln right now, but I haven't seen them. 
The forms make the images permanent and the idea sort of reminds me of the daguerreotypes sometimes affixed to headstones from the past.  More to come as I get them finished.  Hope to complete most of this by the end of next week to allow for some breathing room.