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.
Oops, it's been a while since I had a chance to post. Been busy with summer teaching duties and trying to get some studio time in. Since I work in steel and wood and my studios have no AC it's been difficult to convince myself to put on jeans and work boots to go out side in 100F temps to weld. I digress! I have been working on some ceramics projects, as that is inside and it's what has my interest right now. I do need to force my self back into the wood shop for a bit as I do have that big show coming in October in NC and want to have new work for it. I guess I will use the shop at school, it's cool there!I have a few ceramic sculptures about to get high fired and glazed this weekend so I'll post pictures of those when they come out. I am experimenting with some new glaze colors so they might be just disasters but hey, that's they way it works.Since I last posted I was excited to find out I got into a very sweet national juried show in Berkeley CA at the ACCI Gallery. It was a fast turn around; they contacted me one day then I built my crate and shipped off the work, Swamp Shack I, a day later. I like to have a little more turn around time but when dealing with commercial galleries you sometimes have to jump through a few hoops. I have been trying to get some work onto the west coast and with this show I can tag that one. I am now hoping I can do more in that area.Well that's all for now, hopefully I'll have some pictures soon of those new ceramics works. Cheers!
