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Mar
05
Graduate School Update: Accepted!

Hey all! Since I posted awhile back on my grad school application process I thought it would be good to share the results with you. And since I already gave it away in the title- yes, I got in!

*happy dance*

Overall I applied to five MFA ceramics programs. I am proud to tell you that I was accepted to four of them! I actually received my one rejection before any acceptances came in so that caused some initial nervousness. The next school to call was my number one choice of school, Indiana University in Bloomington. When a school accepts you they typically give you time to think about it and call them back, but of course I felt no need to do that since IUB was my dream school. I am thrilled to be headed there this summer and start school this August!

Jan
21
Sculpture in Progress: The Land of Milk and Honey

It’s been a while since I shared an in progress post. I happen to be snowed in today here in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky so since I can’t get to the studio this is a perfect time for one!

First, though. Here is what it looks like outside:

Not least because of that lamp post I was mentally transported to Narnia for a while on my walk outside. I must have read those books a hundred times growing up and the animal characters from the series are a part of my motivation to use animal characters in my work today.

The animal I’ve most recently completed is a rabbit- and my first ever wall piece! Here’s a sneak peek: 

In a lot of my sculptures thus far I have faced the challenge of getting animals to look dynamic and lively while also making sure they won’t tip over or break under their own weight. I love showing animals in dynamic poses while running, leaping, or flying- but these are often tough to do with a sculpture because there is little (or no!) contact with the ground in a lot of these positions. You’ll see lots of illustrations on my mugs of animals in such poses:

I just love the way those back legs kick out! They’re so fun to draw ^ ___ ^

So anyhow. One strategy for sculpting an animal in a pose that doesn’t touch the ground is . . . to make a sculpture that doesn’t actually need to touch the ground. That’s what brought me to create a piece for the wall. I wanted to take the image of the rabbit running in a field of clover that I had created on my mug and transform that into a fully realized sculpture. I began by sculpting a tube-like body and then building some legs off of the main form:

After sculpting these legs, I was totally unimpressed with them. I ended up cutting them off and making new legs. I wanted to show you the “mistake” legs, though, just to illustrate that the sculpting process for me often involves backtracking and re-making parts that don’t go quite right the first time.

The new legs. Much better! Also a lovely shot of the organized chaos of my work space. To cushion my sculpture, I am using a foam egg-crate mattress pad that I just cut up with scissors. You can see some of my mugs acting as tool and water holders, too. Off in the top left, you can see some flattened coils I have made which I will use to build up the neck and head.

The head added. I’ve now got madam rabbit propped up on top of a plastic jar. This was a better vantage point for adding the head, and cutting the wall mounting holes on her other side. At this point, before I’ve added the eyelids, I always think the animals look like they are asleep. Sometimes I like to think of it as too early in their development for their eyes to have opened yet. Like they are still floating peacefully in an embryonic state.

The eyelids added. Good morning!

Next I painted the sculpture black with underglaze and began carving out the field of clover. For perspective, the clover get bigger towards the bottom, or foreground of the image and then get smaller as they recede into the background. I imagined the field of clover stretching out on gently rolling hills.

The carving completed! Clouds and sky added in to the background. I like that the swirling marks that act as the background to the image also double as the rabbit’s fur. In the clover area I made these marks more vertically to suggest grass in the clover field.Shout out here to mosaic art- when I learned about the concept of “opus” ( the way tiles are laid in a mosaic to suggest different types of movement or texture) it let me see that I could use the directional lines of my background carving to also suggest different types of movement or texture. In a way, those tiny carving lines could be thought of as functioning similarly to the small pieces of tile in the background of a mosaic.

You would think that I would have learned more about using directional line from drawing classes than from mosaic making. But for some reason mosaics were what really made that concept stick for me. Life’s funny sometimes.

Next I put the sculpture through the bisque kiln- always the most nerve-racking part of the process for me. The bisque (or preliminary firing) is very stressful on the clay and it is best to take a sculpture like this through the process slowly to avoid cracking or pieces coming off. After the bisque:

You can see how dramatically the color of the clay has whitened and the black of the underglaze has darkened.

Next step: cover the piece in glaze and put it through the second firing- the glaze firing.

Running but not going anywhere for the next 24 hours! The glaze firing takes 8-10 hours or so to get to temperature (about 2200 F) and then another 10-12 to cool enough for me to open it up. To be safe I always allow 24 hours from the time I start the kiln to the time I open it back up. If the kiln is especially full or I have to fire it more slowly, sometimes it can be even longer. The glaze looks white now but the heat of the kiln will turn it clear.

Anything with glaze on it will stick to the kiln shelf if it is touching it. So, the parts of madam rabbit touching the shelf were wiped clean of glaze beforehand. Mainly her shoulder and thigh on the back had no glaze on them.

And, the final reveal:

I was very pleased with this result. In fact, I am inspired to make another wall mounted rabbit sometime in the near future. After the glaze firing, you can see that this clay body becomes eggshell-like in color. If you go back and look at the bisque photo you can see quite a striking difference.

I called this piece “The Land of Milk and Honey,” after the idea of paradise or perfection. It represents our seemingly insatiable human pursuit of that goal. Even when we finally reach one goal, oftentimes we hardly stop to appreciate it before straightaway running for another paradise we’ve envisioned. I made this piece to capture that state of mind.

Of course if you had your own interpretation don’t let my description take that away from you. I’d be interested to hear other takes that people might have on the work.

Hope you enjoyed seeing how it was created! Now to go enjoy some warm hot chocolate and see how much more snow has fallen . . .

 

 

 

Jan
04
Some things I learned about applying to MFA programs (Part II)

I’m not sure about all of you out there, but I am a person who deliberates before deciding on things. And the bigger the decision, the greater the deliberation. I’m not really one for impulse buys, if you know what I mean. So while agonizing is too strong a word, suffice it to say that the decision on where to apply to graduate school was not one I made lightly. If you haven’t yet, you can read about my decision methodology in this post.

Once I had, at long last, figured out where to apply, I started looking into what I needed to do. And let me tell you, it is quite a process.

The Application

Dun dun dunnnnnnnnn! Really though, if you stay organized, you can make it through okay. I was reading another blog by someone applying to grad school, and they said that the doubt, confusion, insecurity and stress you might feel while applying to school is a good test to see if you are ready for actually attending graduate school. While I have not yet attended grad school, I’d guess that’s not too far off the mark.

In the last post I mentioned a spreadsheet I kept with detailed information on each school’s program. Now that I was ready to apply, that spreadsheet was converted into a master checklist of due dates and items I needed to submit to each school. The way that helped me best remember what was needed was that each school needed a list of seven items:

1. Application to the Graduate School. This is different than the application to your specific department and contains more sort of general requirements.

2. Application to the Fine Arts Department

Underneath the umbrella of these two applications fall the other five items. Each school is different in how they arrange what stuff goes into the grad school app and what stuff goes into the departmental application. Sometimes you even need to submit a single item to BOTH the graduate school and your department. The other items are:

3. Transcripts

4. Letters of Recommendation (usually 3)

5. Application Fee

6. Letter of Intent

7. Portfolio of Artwork (15-20 images)

Sometimes there was an extra item:

8. Application for assistantships, grants, or fellowships. If you want to get loans you may also need a FAFSA or other financial type documents. I didn’t mess with that so I have no idea what it entails. But usually the school has a financial aid office to help with that kind of thing.

I have to say that the two things I truly did agonize over the most were the letter of intent and the portfolio. I had actually considered applying to grad school one year earlier but ended up putting it off because I didn’t feel that my portfolio was strong enough yet. I know a lot of people apply right after undergrad with their senior thesis work as a main part of their portfolio, but I waited for five years after undergrad to apply. I wanted to get out in the world and see what I could do, and I also wanted to make whatever work I felt like making for a while, totally free from the pressures of deadlines and such. I waited until I actively WANTED the critique, deadline, studying atmosphere of school before considering applying to go back. I have heard from more than a few people that going in straight out of undergrad can cause some serious burnout, so it seems good to take time off between unless you are confident that you are really ready and have plenty of energy. For me the break time in between was very eye-opening because it revealed just how challenging it is to work as a ceramic artist out in the world. I know graduate school is hard, but in some ways going back to school will seem like a luxury as far as access to studio space and equipment goes. Not to mention that I am very excited for the chance to be part of an active artistic community once again. But back to the application.

The Letter of Intent

I felt a lot of pressure about this letter. Most of the prompts for it from schools were very vague, saying to include “your artistic goals and intent in pursuing graduate study” or some such broad description. I combed the internet for advice on writing it, but most of the advice I found was for people applying to MFA programs in creative writing. Nonetheless, I still found this post by writer Nicole Basaraba very relevant and helpful. Plus it contains a picture of a cute kitten. Always good!

I had to laugh, then, when I tried to ultra-casually ask one of the professors from a school I visited what they wanted me to put in the letter. By then I had written and re-written the letter four times and had had some friends read and edit it for me- thanks Sadye and Kate!! The professor’s response- “We just want to see that you can string two sentences together and that everything is spelled right.” I think she must have caught my hastily concealed horror though, because then she added that they really wanted to know how I thought about my work and what were my goals for developing it, etc. This conversation taught me that I shouldn’t overly obsess about the thing. It is definitely good to edit ruthlessly and stick to the prompt as much as you can, especially if your school’s prompt is more specific than most of mine were. And having others edit is even better. In the end my letter opened with a little bit of history about my professional background, then launched into the motivation, technique, and philosophy behind my work, and finished with reasons why I wanted to go back to school and why I thought that particular school was a good fit for me.

Oh. One other thing that professor mentioned in her answer was, with a dramatic flair- “Don’t say, clay is my liiiiiiife, it’s my passion, I love clay and that’s all I want to do, blah blah blah.” I’m sure committees must read that all the time. I hadn’t put it in my letter because I thought the fact that I was applying to an MFA program in clay kind of made it obvious that that’s how I felt 😉

The Portfolio

Now this was The Big One. I had heard, over and over, from very trustworthy and knowledgeable people, that the portfolio was the number one factor in the school’s decision. And that makes sense. You’re going for a Master’s in Fine Arts, so naturally your current art is of great interest to the school. They want to see what kind of potential you have. The problem was that I had also heard a lot of conflicting advice on the portfolio. Submit only your best work, submit only your newest work, no, the committee wants to see evidence of growth so submit something that shows that, submit lots of different types of work, no, submit a cohesive body of work, and so on.

Ultimately I submitted a group of my newest and strongest pieces that all went together as a cohesive body of work. I submitted them in backwards chronological order, most recent to oldest. I included several detail shots in the portfolio. I also did something that I had gotten mixed feedback on, which was to put some functional items in an otherwise sculptural portfolio. Looking at the portfolio as a whole, I felt that the functional and sculptural work were sufficiently related, and even informed one another, so that merited their addition. You can judge for yourself by looking at the work in my 2013 gallery :) I also submitted some older work.

And now we wait 

So, that was the end! After I was done I triple checked to make sure everything got where it was supposed to. Many schools have messages on their websites that say, “the school is not able to confirm receipt of application materials” which is basically to discourage people avalanching them with questions about if their application got there or not. Luckily most parts of the process are online, and they have little confirmations built in, so you can go back and check, say, that all your recommenders responded or that your transcript was sent to the school. The graduate schools also sent emails confirming they had received their part of my application.

So now I settle in and wait for a few months. Think I can stand the suspense? I’m sure I can because I plan to spend it busily working in the studio! Cheers all for reading, and of you are a person applying to an MFA program in visual arts feel free to ask any questions in the comments or you can email me too. It’s quite a process and as I learned, it’s better to do it with help from some friends! One last thank you to anyone and everyone who has helped me out with this. Even if I don’t get in anywhere I have learned a lot and am eternally grateful to all of you. Much love!!

 

 

Jan
04
Hello again world! I’m back from applying to graduate school! Also: some things I learned (Part I)

The final application has been completed! After two years of research, portfolio building, school visits, and letter writing, I’ve reached the other side of the river that is submitting graduate school applications!

After much work and deliberation, I ultimately applied to five schools, to their Master of Fine Arts in Ceramics programs. I don’t know whether I will be accepted or not so I’m not going to name the schools here. But during my application process, lots of people asked me- what’s the big deal with these applications? Why are they keeping you so busy? What do you have to do anyway? I also know that there are probably other people like me out there who might be looking for advice or at least want to hear what someone else did in their application process. So, I wanted to make a post about applying to MFA programs in ceramics, and what my experience was like.

Of course, as I mentioned, I have no idea if I was accepted into any of these schools since it is only January, and from what I have heard schools do not send their replies until March or April. So it’s too early to say if my methods were successful or not. However, I do feel as though I sent in my best possible materials, so even if I am not accepted, I will have no regrets whatsoever about my portfolio or any other part of my application. From what I have heard, the field of people applying to MFA programs in the visual arts is a competitive one, and oftentimes it is hard for schools to choose because there are so many qualified candidates. People who apply to MFA programs do not do it frivolously, and are usually very motivated and passionate about their work. To add to that, art can often be a subjective thing, and with the portfolio being one of the largest factors in a school’s decision, it may come down to a question of whether the committee responds to your work or not.

Knowing all this, I wanted to make sure I was as on the ball as possible with this whole grad school thing. So here I will share some of the things I did that I found most helpful in choosing a school. In part 2 of this post, I will describe the actual application process. So if you’re not interested in how I chose my schools, skip on ahead to the next post!

Research, research, research! 

I began looking into schools almost two years before I ended up applying. I don’t think everyone necessarily needs that much time, but there are a lot of schools to look at. I found this list of schools with ceramics programs by Digitalfire helpful- though not all the schools listed have MFA programs, FYI. I also was helped out by Ceramics Monthly’s MFA Factor feature they have been running, which profiles different schools’ MFA ceramics programs. There are a few factors I looked at when choosing schools. Everyone’s priorities will be different, but mine were:

1. Professors. Is there at least one professor who is a figural sculptor? That is what I want to do, so it made sense to me to seek out a mentor.

2. Money. Does the school offer any assistantships where you can trade work for a tuition waiver or other benefits? Many schools do, and in my opinion, gaining work experience as a teacher or studio tech while also getting tuition waived is a double win.

3. Location. Is the school in a location where I would be happy to live?

4. Length of program. Is the school’s program two or three years? Personally I wanted to stay in school as long as possible, in order to learn and develop my work as much as possible while there, so I sought out three year programs.

5. Ranking. How is the school ranked? Now here I have to say that ranking was one of the least important factors for me. I say that because I personally believe that a school does not have to have huge name recognition to give a truly excellent educational experience. But I did check the US News & World Report rankings nonetheless. In my opinion a better barometer than rankings is to go on the school’s website and see what kind of work current grads are making, and many schools also post lists of their past grads. If you see a long list of artists you admire and recognize on that list (which I did for several schools), then that is a good indicator of the school’s “rightness” for you.

Once I started narrowing down my list to the schools that fit the above conditions, I think I got to about 20-30 schools. Then I whittled that down to top 12, then top 6. I used an excel spreadsheet to list all of the five factors I mentioned above about each school so I could compare them easily side by side.

So how did I narrow it down? Some schools had programs that technically offered ceramics, but didn’t seem to recognize ceramics as its own area. You could “major” in it, but your degree would be called “Sculpture” or “3D practices.” Something didn’t feel right to me about that. I wanted a school that recognized ceramics as its own area worthy of mention right there on the degree. So a few schools were eliminated that way. Some schools were eliminated because none of the current grad work resonated with me. Some schools had programs whose setup seemed either too open-ended or too regimented for my liking so they were crossed off the list. However it is hard, because most of the information I was getting was coming from the schools’ websites, which admittedly is a rather impersonal way to learn about a place. Which brings me to the next step:

Reach out

Once I had my list down to the top 12, I began asking questions of anyone I could to find out more about these programs. I am sorry to say that many schools’ websites can be confusing to navigate and it can feel like a wild goose chase trying to get certain pieces of information. Most times the websites do list a contact person for the department and they are usually very helpful and fast in answering questions. Don’t be shy about emailing them! I was lucky enough to work at Arrowmont and Penland over the summers, and there were many people there knowledgeable about the various ceramics programs I had chosen. I even had the good fortune to meet some professors from the schools on my list, and all of them graciously agreed to answer my questions. Also, my undergraduate professor from Truman State, Wynne Wilbur, was a huge help in giving advice and linking to lots of great articles with more information. Thanks, Wynne!!

Once I had it narrowed down to the top 6, I began planning which schools I would actually go and visit. If you can, I recommend visiting BEFORE you send your application. If you don’t like the school after the visit, you can save yourself the trouble and application fee. And if you DO like the school, the professors there will already recognize your name when your app comes in. That can’t hurt! Personally I visited three schools. Two blew me away and one ended up seeming like not a great fit for me. So it was helpful knowledge to gain. If I would have had the time and money I would have liked to have visited all my schools. Personally I think the visit can tell you the most about a school so I recommend it highly!

Most schools have information on their website about who to contact about a visit. Lots of times you can ask to stay with a grad student so you don’t have to worry about getting a hotel room. While on your visit pay close attention to the attitude of the grad students and their relationship to their professors. I was looking for an environment where everyone worked hard but also got along and supported each other. If possible I wanted a place where people actually enjoyed each other’s company into the bargain.

After my visits, I had made up my mind on my final five. Then began the application process. To follow me through that part of the journey, click over to the next post!

 

 

 

 

 

Sep
27
The Arrowmont Experience

Probably you have heard me say how much I love Arrowmont, and that it’s one of my favorite places in the world. But when people ask me what’s so great about it, that’s actually really hard for me to answer, for two reasons:

1) Like many great life experiences, you kinda just have to be there, and

2) There is so much good about Arrowmont that I have a really hard time being concise, and not holding forth into a long winded spiel containing the word “amazing” an excessive number of times.

The closest I can get in one paragraph is to say that Arrowmont is an experience that is at once energizing, nurturing, and challenging. It’s like a close knit family cheering you on as you attempt something new and ambitious. I have also heard it described as “summer art camp for adults.” While that doesn’t really capture the scope and prestige of what Arrowmont offers, it does describe the sense of camaraderie, intensity, and fun that you’ll find there.

For those unfamiliar, Arrowmont is an arts and crafts school in Gatlinburg, TN. They offer workshops in various art media taught by instructors who are renowned in their field. I participated in the educational assistant program, in which you receive room & board and one week of class for every full time week of work at the school. This is a fantastic program, and I totally recommend it to anyone serious about the arts who can get away for 4-6 weeks, and has a lot of energy! Applications are on Arrowmont’s website.

I had a lot of material to work with from six weeks of classes, visits to the park, and karaoke nights, so this post, as long as it is, is still a mere fraction of my experience this summer. Primarily I will say that the people I met this summer were at the core of what made it so great. My fellow educational assistants, the instructors, the students, the Artists in Residence, and the Arrowmont staff made a truly lovely group of people who it was a pleasure to spend time with. The majority of photos I chose for this post are focused on the art and the locale, but I snuck some fun party time photos in there too. Enjoy!!

When we got there, a two week class on firing the anagama kiln was already in full swing. This is an underground tunnel kiln that requires four days of around the clock stoking (adding wood.) Here’s a stoke in progress. 

Also in full swing when we arrived were plans for an epic mini-golf competition with hand-made art putters. Some of the wood turners got really elaborate. Me, I cut out and taped a construction paper swan to an existing club in 15 minutes. I was late to the planning, what can I say. When the anagama kiln was opened, this is what came out. And this is only part of it. Sparklers at our first bonfire! The fabulous  Kathy King demonstrating some sgraffito. I took Kathy’s class on stacked forms and at some point a rivalry got started between us and the wood turners on whose craft was more awesome, and who had the most impressive students. We spent most of the week leveling playful taunts at each other, and that finally culminated in this: The woodturned version of Kathy’s stacked piece. Here’s her original: So then we “threw” and stacked a bunch of wooden bowls: That week we also visited a truly special Gatlinburg attraction: They have over 20,000 pairs! Here is the section devoted to vegetables. The following week, I took a class with Jenny Mendes about illustrating on clay. Here she is demonstrating her technique. To get the hang of it, I illustrated my cat: Step 1: outline drawing Step 2: fill in drawing Step 3: Add black outlines and gray shading Add some color too if you want, and done! Meanwhile, across the way from the clay studio, there was a class on sculptural needle felting by Stephanie Metz: Here she is demonstrating the process. She takes wool roving, which is basically plain, carded lengths of wool fibers, and stabs it with specialized needles to compact it and shape it into sculptures. Her work is amazinggg and the concepts behind it are really thought provoking. I highly encourage a visit to her website!  That same week we went on a hike and found this. The next week we had the super awesome hand-builder extraordinaire Sunshine Cobb come to teach us her method of making pots. We also got some great stories into the bargain! Here she is regaling us while using her favorite tool, her cheese wire. And, here is what I made! From left to right and top to bottom: Garlic Box, Butter Dish, Tray (it’s upside down) Spaghetti Obelisk, Cotton Ball Box, Cake Stand, Treasure Chest.

Across the way from us was a clay sculpture class led by Debra Fritts. As a clay sculptor myself, I was really interested in the goings-on over there so I visited frequently. This is Debra’s gorgeous demo piece.

There are usually several bear sightings on campus in the summer, and here’s one of them. Their arrival always causes a wave of excitement and consternation across campus. He left after it became clear there were no snacks to be had.

That was also the week we started in on the theme parties. In my last post you saw the poster for 80s party. That was followed by a 20s soiree:

And THAT was followed by a Harry Potter Wizarding Party! I don’t have the poster for that one but I DO have a photo of us all in the school library, in our wizarding garb, being generally magical:

I was sorted, officially, by Pottermore.com, into House Slytherin, if you can believe that. I always self-sorted as a Ravenclaw but I guess you can’t argue with the sorting hat. At this party we discussed the similarities between assisting at Arrowmont and going to Hogwarts, of which there are many:

1) You receive a letter inviting you to come

2) The campus has plenty of secret rooms and staircases

3) You’re sorted into various working groups, each with their own Head of House

4) There’s a Room of Requirement that always mysteriously has what you’re looking for

5) Muggles (most tourists in Gatlinburg) are oblivious to its location.

The week after Sunshine’s class was a work week for me, so I wasn’t in a class. Work weeks have their advantages- you ironically have more free time during them because you aren’t always rushing back to the studio at night to work on your class projects. It also gives you a really nice opportunity to visit all the classes in progress and see what’s going on. Sometimes you can even catch a demo or two.

I was happy to have my aunt Judy sign up for a class that week, and my husband and sister came for a visit too. It was really great to see my family for a few days and we lived it up tourist style in Gatlinburg with trips to such venerable establishments as No Way Jose’s Cantina and the Ole Smoky Moonshine Holler. We also visited this river:

That same week a class on sculpting in concrete led by Sherri Warner Hunter took place. Sherri does lots of large scale and public pieces in concrete which she then mosaics on top of. That really got me thinking, because my two great artistic loves are sculpture and mosaic. And, I have always been interested, though sadly never participated, in public art. Concrete sculpting could be a way for me to combine all of those things. Sherri was gracious enough to tolerate my constant buzzing around the workshop, asking questions and observing the students’ work.

Here’s Sherri and I.

The week of Harry Potter party was our last week at Arrowmont. That week was also our last night of karaoke, our weekly tradition. I have never been so sad about a night of karaoke before.

In conclusion, I’ll leave you with this photo from that night. Sorry it’s a tad blurry, still charming though!

Not everyone from the group made it out, but everyone was definitely there in spirit as we belted our way through one final round of songs, closed out the bar, and went home to campus. The next night the Artists in Residence threw an amazing goodbye party for us, which aside from being super fun, provided some good closure. Still, it was a strange feeling to leave with the students this time instead of watching campus empty out all day while we tried to catch up on sleep and plan our next week.

I was sad to leave, but it’s okay. I’ll definitely be back someday.

 

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Aug
02
Welcome Arrowmont-ers!

Hi there everyone! I’m currently at the end of week 4 of 6 here at Arrowmont, and it has been a thoroughly amazing experience so far. If you are just arriving here to my blog after meeting me at Arrowmont, welcome!! I’m glad you stopped by, and it was a pleasure meeting you this summer!

I had a lot of people this summer ask me about ordering mugs. I am hopeful, very very hopeful *fingers crossed* that I will be able to re-open my etsy store this fall and streamline the online sales process. Until then, though, I am more than happy to take orders and commissions through plain ol’ email. You can peruse my current group of mug designs here, and simply email me at emily539@gmail.com letting me know which you’d like. Then I’ll reply with a quote and estimated delivery date. Or! And I love when people do this! You can special request your own image from nature in your email.

I am planning to make some more in depth posts about my Arrowmont experience after I head home and things calm down a bit. As you know if you have spent any time at Arrowmont, the schedule here is pretty non-stop! It’s hard to even get a full night’s sleep let alone make blog posts.

However, before I get swept back up into Arrowmont life, I would like to leave you with this photo. All the studio assistants put our heads together and planned a social event to honor the birthday of our friend, Summer, who is leaving us for a new apartment and new school at the end of this week. It takes place tonight so we are all pretty excited! Enjoy!

 

Jul
11
Penland Photo Diary

Time for me to do the blogular equivalent of, “hey, wanna look at my vacation pictures?” Except this is an art vacation so maybe that excuses it, just a little? Hope you enjoy!

Arriving at Penland. As a fantasy lover, was instantly reminded of this:

Rivendell, from the Lord of the Rings.

The view from Penland’s side of the mountain.

The studio assistant cabins.

This boardwalk ran the length of our sleeping cabins. At the end was a community bath house. Loved the modern aesthetic of these places! Also, since Penland has an iron studio on campus, many of the cabins’ metal fixtures were forged iron, even down to the toilet paper roll holders!

I was at Penland for a glass mosaic class, but couldn’t resist checking out the clay studio.

They have two studios, an upper and a lower. Both have porches with work areas overlooking the field and mountains.

One side of Penland’s massive kiln yard.

The glass studio- my home for the next two weeks. At night, after our work in the studio was done, sometimes my class would transform that table you see out front into a super classy wine bar and hangout spot.

Speaking of my class, here they are! We had a really fun two weeks together- everyone seemed to make a lot of progress in mosaics, no matter what their starting point. My favorite part was the level of enthusiasm for the medium shared by everyone in the class. One of the students who lived nearby to Penland was nice enough to have us to his house for lunch- that’s where we are here.

These guys were everywhere on campus.

To begin the workshop, Cindy had us working on a mosaic in the traditional Roman style. Here is my attempt at that, in progress.

Later, we branched out to challenge ourselves with a project of our own design. Here I’m partway through my very first abstract mosaic.You can see one of my mugs hanging out behind it!

On Saturday, halfway through the 2 week session, we took a trip to Asheville, NC, to visit this place, where we stocked up on stained glass scrap and vitreous glass tile.

This is only a small fraction of the selection!

When we got back from Asheville that evening, Penland threw a summer solstice masquerade dance party for all of the students. That’s me in the fox mask with my friend Abby from the glassblowing class. This picture’s a little blurry but I find it really charming so I included it! The party was a perfect way for everyone to cut loose and enjoy time with new friends after a week of hard work in our studios.

And speaking of glassblowing, I spent a lot of time over in their studio watching them work. The flow of their process and teamwork was super impressive. Blowing glass can be done alone but for this workshop the students all worked in teams of two. The glassblowers were also a very cool group of people and I spent a lot of time just hanging out with them. Here Kenny, the glass instructor, is demonstrating how to pull cane, which is a pencil sized piece of glass rod that contains colors or patterns. Glassblowers use it as a decorating element. You can see a small pile of it on the table in the bottom of the photo.

In the end, the cane got so long that it stretched the entire length of the studio and several feet out the door! The long cane gets cut up into the pencil sized smaller pieces soon after it’s pulled.

As the workshop drew to a close, we finished all or of mosaics by setting, grouting, and painting the borders. Here’s my finished Night Rabbit!

Every session at Penland they have an auction of donated student work that helps raise money for the studio assistant and work study program. Being there as a studio assistant myself, I felt it was appropriate for me to donate this. It ended up earning $150 for Penland! Woo hoo!

Here’s my finished abstract, Tulip Fields. It’s hanging up in my kitchen at home.

A lot of people at Penland did artist trades while there. I had spent the whole week salivating over the gorgeous work coming out of the glassblowing studio, so I was thrilled when one of the glassblowers proposed a trade. I traded this:

And was rewarded with this lovely champagne flute:

Which I promptly enjoyed at wine bar.

On the last day, our class had a show and tell with all of the work we had made. This was only one of three tables worth!

So we all parted ways a few mosaics, a great experience, and several friends richer. I’m so grateful to both Cindy and Penland for having me as an assistant! Hope you enjoyed the photo diary. Stay tuned for updates out of Arrowmont!

 

 

 

 

Jul
09
A Summer on the Road

Hello everyone! It’s been a little while since I’ve posted, but that’s because I have been having an incredible summer of traveling! In June, I was at Penland for two weeks helping Cindy Fisher with a mosaic workshop there. Then, I headed to Chicago for a bit of a vacation with Adam, who was attending the American Library Association conference. While there, I met Gene Luen Yang, author of the graphic novel American Born Chinese, reading I wholeheartedly recommend. I had one short week at home and now I have arrived at Arrowmont for a six week stint as a Studio Assistant. For those of you who don’t know, I did that last summer too and loved it! The atmosphere at Arrowmont is so supportive and creative, it feels wonderful to be back.

I’m hoping sometime while I’m here to post some photos of my travels and of some of the work I’ll be making while I’m here. I’m thrilled to be taking classes from Kathy King, Jenny Mendes and Sunshine Cobb while here. And all in a row, no less! It will be a three week clay intensive, but I think I’m ready!!

Finally, you may notice that the annoying popup from my web host is no longer an issue. I have my wonderfully talented webmaster/designer/super friend extraordinaire Kate to thank for that. THANK YOU KATE! You’re the best!!

 

 

May
29
The Tipping Point

I’ve only been making these sgraffito mugs for about three months, but it finally feels like I have achieved some functional work that is truly my own. Here is a story about an event that helped me get where I am now.

For anyone that’s followed my functional work in the past, you may recall the arabesque teapots, stamped mugs, and ornate embellishments lavished upon every pot. The problem with these previous pots was that they were perfectly competent pots that had nothing whatsoever to do with me or my personality. They were good pots, but they were not personal. And at least for me, when a pot is personal, when it resonates with the maker’s intent and unique style, well, that is when a pot is truly special. I could see this je ne sais quoi emanating from other potters’ work and was frustrated to not see it coming from mine.

Goa, 2009

This feeling reached a tipping point when a gallery that had been selling my early work reported to me that their customers were scared of my pots. That the pots were too formal, too elaborate, too intimidating for them to ever use. Instantly a couple of things went though my head. Firstly, I have always been a person who strongly dislikes the idea of the “special” plates that sit in a cabinet 360 days of the year and are only brought out on major holidays. As soon as I heard the gallery’s comment, I realized that I had been making that exact type of pot, the 360 day cabinet sitters. How ironic.

Secondly, I had always loaded so much embellishment and detail onto my work as a way to invite people in, to make them want to examine & take in every facet of the pot. It was now clear to me that my strategy was failing, and all the detailing and embellishments were just serving to overwhelm and intimidate.

Thirdly, I had a small moment of panic. I clearly needed to stop making these pots and make something else. But what?

Finally, I was overwhelmingly grateful to the gallery for giving me this information. As an artist, you don’t always get to hear people’s completely candid opinions of your work. Without this commentary, I may have continued making unfulfilling pots for much longer than I actually did. If you are a gallery owner reading this, I encourage you to pass on customer feedback to your artists, even when it is negative. It may just be the catalyst for a new and better phase of their work.

That incident happened probably about two years ago, over which time I have gone through and discarded several other attempts at achieving personal pots. Now I have finally come up with some pots that are inviting, and I feel represent my aesthetic better than my functional work ever has. I have already gotten an overwhelmingly positive response on them from friends, family, and my new gallery, the Appalachian Artisan Center. I may end up changing my work again in the future, but for now I feel like my pots finally have that certain something they have always lacked.

Estern Screech Owl Mug

Eastern Screech Owl Mug, 2013

 

 

Apr
30
Walk Through the Dark Forest With Me

Just as I predicted, this Dark Forest theme has really captured my imagination. After I finished the deer sculpture from the last post, I knew I had something I needed to explore for awhile.

In the last post, I described the idea of the Dark Forest as a metaphor for dark and confusing times that we all pass through as part of the human experience. I think everyone will pass through one at some point. Some people are in the process currently. But everyone’s experience is different. I thought of the Dark Forest as a vast place, with many different pathways and creatures lurking there. My plan is to create a series of Dark Forest Species. Each one will personify (animal-ify?) one experience, struggle, or thought that a person could meet with on their journey. Some might be harrowing, others might be sad. Others may represent the light at the end of the journey. In any case, it’s a lot to work with so I am ready to hit the studio and populate this forest!

Here is an in progress shot of my next Species:

This guy is meant to be a little unsettling. He is one of the more worrisome things you could meet while in the dark forest. More on that later, when he is completed.

Also, on a personal note: I was describing some of my ideas to a friend of mine when she stopped me and said, “Emily. Are you going through something you want to talk about? Is everything okay?” I was really touched by her concern, and had totally not realized that making work about struggling with difficult issues might- well, make people think I was dealing with some difficult issues! Truthfully, I am doing just fine, and that’s what I told my friend. I have made self-referential pieces before, to parse out something I was thinking or dealing with at the time. But this new series isn’t.

However, I’ve got some friends that have or are currently going through some tough times. One thing that continually amazes me about people is their ability to appear normal and happy, and function well in day-to-day life, while secretly they are carrying some pretty serious burdens. Whether it’s some tough memories they’re trying to move on from, or a present-day issue, people can have a lot going on in their head that you might never find out about. So I can tell you that a lot of the inspiration for this series is taken straight from the experiences of people who I greatly admire and cherish. Without naming any names or exposing any stories directly, I wanted to find some way to express the poignancy and complexity of what people carry with them under the surface.

All images copyright Emily Nickel 2012-2016. Site by Kate Moore.