The 10th Annual Brat Off!!

Welcome Ladies and Gentleman to the Ohio University's 10th Annual Brat Off, brought to you by your lovely OU Ceramics Department; it was exciting weekend here full of Winners, Losers, Brats, Booze and more! This years Brat Off was by far one the better ones that I have attended, being the 10th Anniversary that were lots of guests in town for the competition. The event had over 36 entries ranging from Asian, BBQ, Beer, Mustard, Hot, Sweet, Salty, Sour flavored, home made, store bought, supped up, and vegetarian, with all them cooked over charcoal, gas, wood chips, and steamed inside of your favorite grill or kiln. As a second competition this year, they added a new event; Best In Show, entries had only a few rules, being that the sculpture had to contain at least one brat, and did not have to be edible. so there were a range of brat sculptures to choose from. There were Four awards to be given out, one for Best In Show made by graduating senior Ellissa Cox, and First-Third made by Tim Berg himself, what a display!!























Once the grilling began contestants all placed their entries on a paper plate and turned them in for the jugging. Matt Long,

the judge this year, had his work cut out for him, being one of the cofounders of this competition he was hoping to have both halves judge but because he was unable come Matt choose an honorary judge... his son!! The two of them plowed through all 39 entries, approving on some and spitting out others, being forced to try all of them even after exclaiming "but its not even meat!" In the end with bulging bellies they announced the Winners... In Third Place, 2005 Ohio University Alumni Colleen Toledano (Woooh WHoo!!!), and in Second Place, Our 2005-2006 Visiting Artist Patti Chalmers (HHhaaahh HHHaaaa hhHaaaHH!!) and in an Amazing First Place, Our very own First Year Grad Student NICK BIVENS (and the crowd goes wild!!!!)
Yes it was a stiff competion with a lot of broken hearts but someone had to be the Winner. And now for the winner of the Best In Show, there were a lot great sculptures, some more sculpturally sound, others more conceptual (yes thats right conceptual brat sculpture,) But the winner taking home the amazing fish sculpture goes to ( drum roll please) Yvonne Brueckner all the was from Halle, Germany!!! She won with her amazing "Off With Her Head" Queen of Brats Sculpture.
Though the Germans lost their pride in the competition they should have easily sweep, meaning Johannes homemade brats, they gained it back with vengeance using Yvonne's natural sculptural abilities. What an amazing competition it was this year. Since the awards were given out, it was time to do was all ceramics and artists do best eat, chat and of course drink. There was also a DJ this years event, Nate from the sculpture department, brought his records and sound system setup for our listening pleasure, which was naturally lending towards a dance party. This years Brat Off one for the books Ladies and Gentleman, can't wait to start working on my brat for next year.

FLamER FLAME!!

After Last weeks adventures, with Mom's this week was back to work for all of OU students. Including myself, who would have thought that I still was going to have things to do after my show. Glaze calc, is comming into full swing with the start of our base glazes being formulated in preperation for the 66pt triaxel that we will be working on in the upcomming weeks. With the glaze calc class working in the glaze room there has been a slight battle with all of the other classes that are working their buts off trying to make as much work as humanly possible to fill the wood kiln. Yes that right FLamER FLAME!!! will be fired off this week however I think they decided to name it BUD which I think is a dumb name so I'll stick with ours. Brads class has been working their buts off to do all the nessicary preperations for the firing, which as we all know is alot of work. They have been heading out to nelsonvillle to load trucks with wood, spending entire class periods, chopping, splitting and preparing logs to stoke and working out the door. All day thursday was devoted to loading, stratigizing where to put the glazed pieces, sculptures, tea bowls and all other sorts of work that was going in. They had four ware carts of work to be
loaded. The back half behind the second stoke was all glaze work, sculptures in the middle and the front was mostly pots. Everyone was in and out helping to load even those who weren't in the class and were just putting work into it. Johannes had a bunch of work for it, and spent alot of time helping to load.
Thursday was one of those 85 degree sping days with not a cloud in the sky, which normally no one would complain about, but loading kilns, crawling in and out, carring work and building doors is not that much fun in the heat with not much shade. We learned that FLamER FLAME holds about three carts of work, so there was a whole other cart that was left to be loaded into a soda kiln. I can't believe that a kiln that huge couldn't fit everything they made for it, Brad must of been proud of his class to make so much work that it all wouldn't fit. They started firing Thursday night and had about a 42 hour firing, with loads of people taking multipule shifts. FLamER FLAME fires Ok, there was alot of uneven spots from front to back and in certin spots along the sides, Brad and Boomer were out there all day on Saturday with the class working on evening it out, but I think this was a case with to many cooks in the kitchen, because I'm not sure that it ever really evenend out. The front was cone 11ish and the back in spots was cone 7ish but who really knows what was going on back there. All in all for its first firing it went well and there was alot of nice work that came out of it. I think that the classes were gererally pleased, there may need to be some re-firing for people to get their pots to temp, but in general I think that most were happy with with thier results. Brad and Boomer are excited for this summers Jason Hess woodfiring frestival to try FLamER FLAME out again, and I'm excited to see how many shades of brown they can come up with.



And The Hand OFF!!!


Next Weeks News: The Brat Off!!!! - get ready for Brats and Booze!!!

It has been a less exciting week to report about, then in the past few. This week was devoted to cleaning up the disasters that I have created for myself; meaning that I have let most other aspects of everyday life on the back burners and now I have a lot of burnt pots to clean. One of the biggest pots to clean were my house and studio space, its amazing how you can let things slide when you mind and body is elsewhere. I was amazed that in the bottom of the laundry pile was a clothes from Louisville! I had no Idea it had been that long since I did laundry, it’s kind of embarrassing. There was also an amazing amount of clay dust layering both my bedroom and my studio, I think I could have build a whole other sculpture with it. I hate cleaning but my house and studio feel like a whole new place, amazing what a little cleaning can do.
There was also a small amount of mental cleaning to do, and the best way that I could think of doing so, was to watch as many movies as I could at the film festival. It’s my favorite time in the spring, though I usually don't have much time to go, this year was an exception. In total I saw seven full-length films ranging from, a documentary style movie on missionaries and the Inuit culture, to the mass production of our food supplies, animals, and produce, and even a film about Artists living under the Soviet Regime. I also managed to make it a few competion films; some were short and sweet, while others had major impacts for just a brief screening, and some just to long and less interesting to me. I saw a few movies with Yvonne and Johannes and it was really nice to have discussions about the films afterwards, sometimes our perceptions were so different and became more defined though chatting. It was also the buzz all over town, so it made for nice conversations with strangers while smoking or having a cocktail at the bar. All in all it was a really nice way to get your mental state of mind back in order.
Though my personal disasters were becoming more like small floods rather than monsoons; the town was getting ready for it to start a raining, Mom's Weekend. As some of you may be aware of, this is the weekend when Mothers over take the city. They time travel back to their "good ol' college days” and start acting similar if not worse than their children. There were Moms everywhere, front lawns, rooftops, roommate’s beds, and littering the bar stools. There were lines outside every shop, restaurant, and bar in the whole town, even our beloved Tony's. Thankfully, all these Mothers come with purses full of expendable cash for their lovely children, and lucky for me there was the Pot Sale, and Damon's restaurant for them to spend that cash on. The pot sale was Fri, and Sat and had its fill of mom's doing what they do best, shopping, there seemed to always be someone looking at the lovely merchandise that the OU ceramics department had to offer, it was a good sale.
Damon’s on the other had was Crazy with Moms, all wanting to take their Kids, kids friends, boyfriends, girlfriends and the one random kid from down the hall, out to dinner for a "decent" meal. I was great for me, I had plenty of people to sling ribs too; however, still a vegetarian I was getting a little sick of looking at masses of meat that were being served; especially after that movie. To say the least all the divorce's, and fountain of youth seeking mothers seemed to have their fill of college boys, beer pong, and brews, while the students left the weekend full and finished with mom-time. All were left to tend to thier own disasters, thank God Mom's weekend is only once a year!


P.S. This weeks Images are just fun!!


Yes that is Yvonne Singing Karaoke!











We played Cranium in my Clean house!















And I even cut some hair this week














Joe Being Silly with a Pug mill
















Awesome Linoleum Art