A Recap
I wanted to start blogging the small collection of documentation I have of my early artistic endeavors as I have grown so much as an artist. Here are a few photos from my highschool ceramic work (2017-2021) that I’ve uncovered from the depths of my camera roll.
A pre-fired ceramic frog tea candle holder (2020). I am super sad that this poor guy lost two toes in a transportation accident before getting fired. I will have to look for photos of this glazed and finished but this is probably my best documentation photo from this early in my practice. I did take a lot of progress photos in high school but they are all pretty chaotic, as you’ll see as you scroll.
This is my imagined human evolution necessary in a covid ravaged world. I made this bust in the depths of March 2020. The engraved lines under the eyes are from the protective masks rubbing into the face so much. The enlarged ears are developed to still be able to communicate through a predicted thicker mask mandate. I imagined piercings would be a huge fad as the evolved ears would be so prominent. The lips and nose would extend off the face more and flatten out in order to evolve to accommodate the mask muffling voice and airflow. My covid character has no hair or eyebrows as it would be burned off by the bleaching we initially thought was necessary when going out into the world. A little dark but the covid mindset was definitely a real phenomenon.
This was my very first submission to an art contest! We were assigned to create a piece and submit it to a local gallery competition that featured the local high schools. I named this one “Bowl Boyz”. Unfortunately it was snubbed in the competition but lives forever on in my parents bathroom. I remember being very excited about the water effect I was able to accomplish by creating organic grooves in the bottom of the bowl and flooding those with a light blue glaze.
My favorite pieces from my high school ceramics studies are definitely these three designs. The “Bowl Boyz” piece was truly my last attempt at making in a classroom setting. During covid I was able to really sit down and spend time on my projects thus creating some of my most detailed ceramic work. I might upload more ceramics documentation if I can find my freshman year course work.
Here are a few more early practices at documentation for my highschool ceramics class. I really wanted to push for abstraction in my ceramics work and tried to focus on coil building irregular utilitarian objects.
Going for height and smoothness in this large coil pot while trying out a new type of clay.
A super nice coil built vase with a twisting effect. I really enjoyed figuring out how to strengthen the curves so that it wouldn’t collapse.
I started this large coil built utilitarian piece that would have had small bells hanging from the holes at the bottom of the piece. It would act like a doorbell or door knocker when picked up and shook. Unfortunately I was unable to get this piece fired with glaze before covid. The bell concept definitely inspired my to explore audio sculptures.
Looking back at all these pieces I have such an appreciation for my early teachings in a small pottery studio in Berkley, CA that has since closed down. I had many silly pieces made in the studio and learned basic skills I was able to carry into my highschool classes. My high school ceramics teacher was a wonderful person. She gave me so much freedom in my assignments, I think it was because she knew I was going to put in more time and imagination into my creations. I always loved 3D builds rather then wheel throwing as it gave me much more freedom in decisions. The ability to guess and check is never easy when working on my art but the clay provided a forgiving medium that I needed to grow confident in making mistakes.
