Monday, February 13, 2012

Busy in the Studio

Working in a university Art and Design department has many, many perks. So I really can't complain. But one thing we do have to deal with is lots of office work, for me that translates into position search committees, six for me this year, designing a new course for on-line, and a bunch of normal stuff like annual evaluations and never mind teaching, and I am also the library liaison, responsible for making sure we spend all of our library allocations. 

In additional to all the above stuff I also must (it's part of my contract) continue to be creatively active, have shows, make work, etc. I wanted to make this a bit easier for me this year, I knew it was going to be a mind numbing semester and decided during the Christmas break I would clean out my office and carve out some space for working in clay. I normally do this at my home studio but getting green-ware into my truck and over to the studio to fire is a nightmare (especially since I got rid of my electric kiln). My office isn't big, but I manage pretty well. Classes started on January 17 and I have spent every spare hour working on my sculpture. Some of these pieces will act as models for larger stuff, some of them are for an exhibition, but all of them are working out ideas I have had rattling around in my head for some time now. Eight of them are bisque fired, two of three I did this weekend are still wet and I have a bit of cleaning up to do before they can dry completly. There are both "ships" and "homes". The smallest ones are about 6 inches tall/wide with the largest boat coming in at over 24" long. I will be testing some glazes and other finishes soon, so hopefully in a month or so I'll have finished works to show you. Here are some images of the work in progress.






Saturday, February 4, 2012

Packing it All Up

Oh what fun! Not! But I did get some help for the day, one of my more enthusiastic students, Grace K. came and worked with me packing up all the artwork. So much easier when you have extra hands, especially since some of the works are awkward to handle. We got everything done and now I will finish up with a few pages of installation instructions. USArt will be here with their truck on Wednesday to pick up the work. It will be nice to get my living room back.

My flight reservations are confirmed and I will be in Moscow, Idaho on Monday, February 20th afternoon until late morning on Thursday, February 23. I am very excited, it's always fun to visit new places and be a part of local art communities.

Lots of Boats, mostly wood, some steel

Cast iron Greenland style paddles, very heavy

Oops!