Installing a show
So this was the last week for wet clay, and I haven't been able to touch the wheel since the very beginning of the semester... so sad. Unfortunately that also means that I wasn't able to work on the cup/bowl/mug things that were promised last year....
They will get to you eventually!!
The show is going to be a good one - opening reception Tues at 6 at the art lofts, if anyone in town is interested. I've got three pieces (which I'll be taking pictures of as soon as I get new batteries in my camera :/ ) one with the tiles, one with hammers and other tools melded together, and one with just hammers suspended in a metal box outline. I'm pleased with how it turned out, (though I still have to hang the bottom half of the melded hammers one - I'm just waiting for the epoxy to dry) and it should be a good show.
There was quite a bit of drama going on with one of the students though... this girl has not finished a single project except for 6 small tiles that hang on the wall. All semester she has talked about how she is a great realist sculptor and expounds on the big projects she plans to do and the life-size sculptures that she intends to make ... and so far she has actually sculpted a (unintentionally phallic) finger, an ill-proportioned head with the buggy eyes of someone unused to sculpting realistically, and a hand with very long, very smooth fingers, none of which are fired yet. It is nearly the end of the semester. She is apparently taking the adv. class for 4 credits and is surprised that she is not doing well grade-wise.
Anyway the drama arose when she tried to put the things she sculpted in the gallery. The grad students and our professor were adamant that these pieces were not finished and therefore should not be on display. There is one thing to be said about displaying raw clay or bisqued ware with a specific intent behind leaving it unfired, but you have to be able to defend your reasoning with a sensible justification, not just that "oh, well I didn't have anything else to show for this whole semester".
She also said something the other day that got on my nerves: she is a biochem major and was talking about seeing if the university would create an arts minor specially for her. That bit was fine (it would be nice if there were an arts minor option) but then I was asking if she planned to take any art theory or art history classes in addition to ceramics (this is her second ceramics class - she skipped ceramics 2 b/c she didn't want to wheel throw). Anyway, she said that she did not plan to take any additional art related classes other than continue with one ceramics course per year, and I voiced my doubt that a minor would be offered for only a total of 4 art classes, saying something along the lines of: "I could be wrong, but I think you'd have to do more than just take a few ceramics classes to justify an entire art minor," to which she responded: "Well that's what a fine arts degree is, so I don't see why they couldn't make it a minor." Um, no. Fine arts people don't just play around with their fun little paint sets and potting wheels and pretty rings. It was annoying to hear her voice so bluntly the opinion of an art major that most students probably share. Yes, some people slack off for 2 years and then decide to take on an art major at the last moment so they can mess around for their last two years, but there are some of us that do work hard and try to make intelligent, interesting work (not succeeding all the time, but making a genuine effort at least). Fnarr.
The piece that she did end up putting in the show (a set of 5 wall mounted plaques that say "atom, universe, cosmological, something something") she will be displaying with little brochures that explain different aspects of each word. I can see how this could be done in a cool way, but how she describes her intent is insufferably patronizing - as though mere art people could not understand the overwhelming complexity of these big science words.
They will get to you eventually!!
The show is going to be a good one - opening reception Tues at 6 at the art lofts, if anyone in town is interested. I've got three pieces (which I'll be taking pictures of as soon as I get new batteries in my camera :/ ) one with the tiles, one with hammers and other tools melded together, and one with just hammers suspended in a metal box outline. I'm pleased with how it turned out, (though I still have to hang the bottom half of the melded hammers one - I'm just waiting for the epoxy to dry) and it should be a good show.
There was quite a bit of drama going on with one of the students though... this girl has not finished a single project except for 6 small tiles that hang on the wall. All semester she has talked about how she is a great realist sculptor and expounds on the big projects she plans to do and the life-size sculptures that she intends to make ... and so far she has actually sculpted a (unintentionally phallic) finger, an ill-proportioned head with the buggy eyes of someone unused to sculpting realistically, and a hand with very long, very smooth fingers, none of which are fired yet. It is nearly the end of the semester. She is apparently taking the adv. class for 4 credits and is surprised that she is not doing well grade-wise.
Anyway the drama arose when she tried to put the things she sculpted in the gallery. The grad students and our professor were adamant that these pieces were not finished and therefore should not be on display. There is one thing to be said about displaying raw clay or bisqued ware with a specific intent behind leaving it unfired, but you have to be able to defend your reasoning with a sensible justification, not just that "oh, well I didn't have anything else to show for this whole semester".
She also said something the other day that got on my nerves: she is a biochem major and was talking about seeing if the university would create an arts minor specially for her. That bit was fine (it would be nice if there were an arts minor option) but then I was asking if she planned to take any art theory or art history classes in addition to ceramics (this is her second ceramics class - she skipped ceramics 2 b/c she didn't want to wheel throw). Anyway, she said that she did not plan to take any additional art related classes other than continue with one ceramics course per year, and I voiced my doubt that a minor would be offered for only a total of 4 art classes, saying something along the lines of: "I could be wrong, but I think you'd have to do more than just take a few ceramics classes to justify an entire art minor," to which she responded: "Well that's what a fine arts degree is, so I don't see why they couldn't make it a minor." Um, no. Fine arts people don't just play around with their fun little paint sets and potting wheels and pretty rings. It was annoying to hear her voice so bluntly the opinion of an art major that most students probably share. Yes, some people slack off for 2 years and then decide to take on an art major at the last moment so they can mess around for their last two years, but there are some of us that do work hard and try to make intelligent, interesting work (not succeeding all the time, but making a genuine effort at least). Fnarr.
The piece that she did end up putting in the show (a set of 5 wall mounted plaques that say "atom, universe, cosmological, something something") she will be displaying with little brochures that explain different aspects of each word. I can see how this could be done in a cool way, but how she describes her intent is insufferably patronizing - as though mere art people could not understand the overwhelming complexity of these big science words.