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

Shows, Shows, Shows!!!
This has been the week of shows, and has been a wonderful time getting to see all of them. After having many guests in town last week, and keeping busy with entertaining all of them. I was able to uninstall on Saturday, it was a relief and saddening to take down everything. Such a strange idea to have all this work, stress and chaos that leads up to this one week and after its all done, packing it up in boxes and putting it in my basement. Weird that we as artists go though so much work, just for a short amount of time in a gallery. The good news is, that not all the pieces are in my basement; one got loaded into the car for a trip to Columbus.
After uninstalling I rushed home to change and go to Joe Davis' reception for the Cosset Canoodle exhibition. What an amazing show!! It looked amazing in the gallery, fondling pots everywhere, begging to be touched and used.
There was even an entire room dedicated to cups that as you walked in, you had to hold back the desire to pour your beverage into the cups on display, and you can tell the cups won't be happy until their utilitarian purpose is fulfilled.
Joe's surfaces were also just luscious, flocked pots everywhere!! Either with clay flocking, or cotton flocking, all just begging to be touched. It was great to walk around and see everyone touching everything. The reception was a great time as well, lots of people, a great band, wonderful food and an overall good time.
The undergrads did a lot of traveling this weekend, back and forth from Columbus twice in two days. On Sunday we drove up to install the show and have a crit, and then on Monday for the reception. The installation went really well, and the work that that we (ou) brought to the table looked really great.
Our pieces were well thought out, and well executed, and looked really great in the gallery. The Ohio State students, brought some very nice work to the gallery, but it seemed to not have very large concepts behind them, and some of the concepts that they did have were often not expressed well through the work, though all the pieces were very nice. It was really interesting to have a crit with another university; it was my first time having this experience. The OSU students also gave us a tour of their facilities, I wish I would have had a camera because it was huge in there, they have the whole first floor of the building and it was loaded with all sorts of high tech equipment, they also just finished renovating parts of it so it was spotless in their. I was so impressed by the facility. It was also really cool to work with them, if you would like to see images of the show you can go to perfectreality-ceramics.blogspot.com for images of all of our work.
Tannaz also had her show this week!
It was, as you can imagine, wonderful as well. She did an amazing job making the gallery have a whole new feel to it. The translucent tubes that stretched from floor to ceiling made the space feel as thought you were a small thing in a world of big tests.
She titled it Self-Haunted and Synthetic and executed it perfectly, I really did feel as thought I was in some altered reality that may have been trying to brainwash me.

Well after seeing all those shows I'm pooped, I'm going to go relax at the film festival! Tell you about it next week.

After talking to Tim at the beginning of the quarter and having alot of my ideas change, the past month was a whirl wind of trying to get closser to the center of the metaphorical target for my show. I decided to make figual sculptures simmiar to the the ones I was making last quarter, as well as make sensory mittens to contrast the physical and the emotional. I'll post my artist statement so you can read it. After getting closer to the center the colmination of my past for years at OU has finally happened!!!! My BFA thesis, I can't belive I pulled it off. I was almost positvie that it might not happen. I had a few misshaps this week ( the ceramics disaster strikes again,) with my first glaze firing not turrning out so well, on friday (I installed on Sunday) I choose to rush a re-fire which luckally turned out alot better than the first one. I broke a few mittens while sanding them, which meant I had exactly enough with no room to screw up. And the last bit of furr that I had got ruined sitting on top of my shelves, so I had to take an emergency trip to parkersburg. The rest of the weekend was dedicated to building pedastools, sanding, primer, and painting them, while also hanging the mechanics of the whole show.
After talking with my coleuges that I was showing with Amanda informed me that she was going to paint one of the walls in the gallery black. I originally accepting of the idea when I thougth she was going to paint the whole wall. When I showed up on Sunday she had began to tape off a really crazy stripe across the wall, i had no idea what was going to happen with that stripe. Amazingly, the painting major couldn't paint a straight line, or do it cleanly, it was really interesting to see. I'm not trying to be cruel but as i was setting up it really was something to see as this girl struggled with painting. Other then the crazy black stripe, setup went alright, a litle stressfull trying to rival my other coleuge Missy's large drip paintings, with placement of work in the gallery, but once some problem solving happened with Tim, it worked out alright. Johannes and Yvonne were amizing, helping me every step of the was and keeping me calm as we watched the gallery transform.
Once I installed Sunday and Monday, I wrongly assumed that it was going to be smooth sailing for the next few days, I was very wrong. Origally we were going to paint our names on the wall, but their plan was to use paint pen (like the gold ones you buy at craft stores) and I couldn't have that on the walls, it would have looked so unprofessional, so i had emergency lettering done at the local print shop. and then of course all the setup, and food prep for the opening. I didn't realize with guests comming into town and lettering to put up, it was going to become challenging to find time to make food. Lucilly my Mom made delicious appetizers.
After the rush of all the setup, was the opening. I think it went really well, I feel like alot of people came, and enjoyed the work wihtin the gallery. People were interacting with my pieces, and I hope were interpreting the work. I think that my viewers were actually engaging for longer then the standard ten sec that they normally engage for. Lots of family and friends came,( I can't believe I have any left) and the whole ceramics department came. It was really nice to have such support from everyone. Audry and Beth, I wish that you could be here for the next few weeks, with all the ceramics shows, it will be a good time. Its sometimes strange to not have etiher of you around.





Here's my artis statement for your reading pleasure, and some pictures from the gallery.

Human beings partake in many actions to keep ourselves comfortable, keep ourselves protected and make sure the outside world is detached from us. We take precautions in our lives, from using sunscreen and passwords, to not allowing ourselves to be seen as vulnerable in the eyes of others. Taking these physical precautions, creates the illusion that we will be "safe” from others keeping our inner selves comfortable.
However, there are times when we let down our emotional and physical guards and allow others in. We create deeper relationships and it then becomes easy to take off our everyday armor. Sadly these bonds can be broken leaving one feeling betrayed, empty, and scared. The tangible things that are taken become nothing in comparison to the emotional holes that are left behind.
This body of work is a reflection on protections that have been lost. Turning my torso into a ceramic piece, I remake myself as something resilient yet fragile. The markings on the bodies are emotions that are felt, like scars they are branded across the chest. These scars can be topical as well as penetrate through the body, this internal and external interaction needs a mediator in skin, whose primary role is as a gate or barrier that maintains the stable relationship between interior and exterior. When protections are lost there are physical and emotional repercussions. I choose to represent these repercussions by creating sensory experiences in the form of metaphoical gloves. These sensory experiences are meant to cause the viewers to question their own comfort levels. The viewer can then make connections between this physical response and the lack of emotional protections that they have felt.

I must admit that this blog is not going to be too different from last weeks, because the activites that took place are very much the same. Which pretty much means I didn't leave the studio; in preperation for next week, the opening of my show. Instead of building, this week was dedicated to firing, lots and lots of sanding ( which is everyone's favorite activiy) glazing, and more firing. Beth and Audry you should feel very lucky that you are in Germany, because had you been here you would have definatly been hired out, either by Joe, Ellisa, or myself. Between the three of use we're employing about 10-15 undergrads at relativly hight rates, for multiple hours a week. Joe has needed loads of help, with epoxying, and applying laytex to objects, we both have been hiring the few left willing, to do sanding and glaze mixing, and Ellisa has keep many people's hands busy with installing her show. I would say that most of the undergrads won't need a summer job at this rate, and will have plenty of beer money for the rest of the quarter the way things are going. However, we're getting closer to finishing, and Joe and I both be installing this weekend, so next week's blog should hopefully be far more interesting, than this one about the ceramics dept again.

So a little update, as to whats going on...

Ellisa installed last weekend and opened on Tuesday night. Everything was wonderful, the walls looked as thought a strange, organic, deep inner jungle had emerged, Erratic Swellings was the perfect title. I the whole space was one giant investigation, it was great to walk around and discover all the secrets hidden in the giant structue. The picures won't do it justice, but it will give you an acceptable idea.




The undergrads in Tim's class (Mahlon, Abby, Johannes, Yvonne and myself) are going to have a show in Columbus with the Ohio State Ceramics Dept, so we're all tying new things, working out ideas, and just plain experimenting, particularly Johannes. We joke that Mahlon's pieces look like giant saposatorys and Abby made a GIANT egg to fire her animals in. Yvonne is making small gargens, which apparently is very different then her usual large work.
Katie is making giant thrown pices with lots of lace details, and Carolyn is blowin clay up with the air compressor (messy!)
The weather is finally getting alittle warmer and the trees are budding, athens is loosing its winter coat and becoming ready for spring/summer.
Don't worry with all this work we have been taking small breaks to chill on the kiln pad. Guess what!? its is loaded with wood!!! Which means Brad's class is going to fire "Flamer Flame" in the middle of may. I'm really exctied to see it finally happen.



Well sadly thats all the interesting news i have for you.