CERAMICS

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I was able to take ceramics classes at Mt. Sac and CSUSB. I took so many ceramics classes that my major advisor at CSUSB was not sure what I was planning on choosing for my emphasis for my BA (it was painting). Though my official emphasis was painting, I really fell in love with ceramics. I prefer wheel throwing over hand building, but given the chance, I love to work with either. I like to see what boundaries I can push and if I can make the final product turn out the way I had imagined. While ceramics can be formulaic, there's definitely a large amount of unpredictability in each project. Shrink rates, glaze uniformity (or lack thereof), weird malfunctions in the clay; it all creates an air of "we'll see what happens" that I don't get with other mediums. Ceramics provides a challenge for me that I love to accept.

Click any of the photographs to see the work by itself. It will also open the ability to view each artwork more like a slideshow.

This piece was done at Mt. Sac. The assignment was to create a functional pitcher. I liked the idea, but was bored and decided to push the limits on this piece. So, I made it an upside down pitcher. When upside-right, it looks like a normal pitcher, but it is not functional. When it is upside-down, it is completely functional. The bottom of the handle creates the pour spout. The joker was me hitting everyone one on the head instead of being subtle and letting everyone discover the joke.	The assignment was to create nesting bowls that were level at the top when nested inside of each other. I wasn't 100% successful. The smallest one ended up being its own project because it was too small. I also should have used a food safe glaze and made them mixing bowls or such. As is, they have to be used to hold objects, or non-edible plants. I really wanted to play with the cool underglazes though, so I bit myself in the foot for the final results.	This is the bowl that was too small to be considered part of the nesting bowls. I had measured out the clay for the project, but this one shrunk considerably more than the 15% that the rest of the bowls shrunk. Since it wasn't up to standard for the other project, I was able to use it as a glaze experiment for this iridescent glaze I had wanted to try forever. But, it is not food safe. It works well to hold small pieces of jewelry and such though. And I absolutely love the glaze.
I loved the shape of the pots I was seeing in museums so I wanted to try it myself. The bottom is a little flat and the shape could have been rounder. It's definitely one of my favorite pieces. It fits so nicely in my hand. I had fun using some oxides on the vase as well.	I needed to make four identical plates. So I made these thinking they would be small dessert plates. However, they shrank more than I thought they would. Now they are plates that can be used for candles or such. Maybe very small desserts. They are very heavy and very thick. These are from my first semester of ceramics. As much as they have some issues, I do like the glaze. I wish I had known that the glaze was going to fill in the crevices, but not level them. It makes these hard to clean.	These were made to match the "dessert" plates as 4 identical cups. I made 15-20 and scrapped the rest because they were not close to being the same. I learned from the plates and made them bigger than I thought they needed to be but still shrunk more than I planned for. I love how these feel in my hands, but because I insisted on no handles (I just love how they look without them), they can't be used for hot drinks, despite how thick they are. My cat loved these cups though and stole one.
I thought I was getting a hold on how much glazes move and shift during firing and wanted to merge my love of weird stuff and drawing into my ceramic art. I made stencil of a weird fairy girl with tattered wings (I've never gotten past my goth phase and have no plans on doing so) and trees. The trees were not even identifiable after firing. The fairy kind of is but there was a lot of movement in the glaze so details were lost. It's also not food safe since I did not glaze the entire plate.	I wanted to make a more "traditional" shaped vase. I also wanted to work with the black glaze to see if I could somehow make it look less soapy after it was fired. It didn't work because I wasn't making the glaze. I don't know why I thought I could "fix" a glaze without being able to mix a glaze myself.

CERAMICS

I loved the shape of the pots I was seeing in museums so I wanted to try it myself. The bottom is a little flat and the shape could have been rounder. It's definitely one of my favorite pieces. It fits so nicely in my hand. I had fun using some oxides on the vase as well.