INTRODUCTION!!!!!!!!

Hello, all!! It's your good ol' pal Sylvia again! I don't have any photos of what any of my most recent works look like yet, but ill be sure to upload those as soon as possible. Most of what my most recent work consists of is fairly basic shapes and basic exploration of forms, types of clay, glazes, and mastering creating functional forms I haven't created yet. Currently at Phoenix Fired Arts I am working on a porcelain tea set. I'm uber excite about finally working with porcelain, as I love its elegant and pristine natural color, the way it takes to glazes, and its lightweight fragility. I also am very interested in the things you can do with porcelain clay, as after my tea set I hope to work with Brent Skinner who has offered to show me how to Saager fire works in alumium foil through the Raku kiln, which speaking of the Raku, we're also planning on working with that as well!

Apart from Phoenix, I have some plans for some cool stuff at Pitt State, that very well might cross borders and be worked on at Phoenix as well. Last semester in my Portfolio Creations and Research class, we were asked to come up with a rationalized project that we could potentially submit for a grant proposal. My proposed work was to somehow infuse peoples sense, such as touch, smell, and sight as well as how these can adversely or positively affect a persons initial reactions and emotions towards an object. My original idea was to somehow combine people these senses and correlate them to peoples reactions with food. Feel free to read the former blog posts to understand more of where i'm coming from.

 I don't exactly plan to complete the project that I had lain out within this class, although I will be building off of it. I've been contemplating on whether to actually work with clay for this project, as I feel that it would be compelling to create vessels that I would typically create with clay, with actual food, each of these vessels could somehow correlate with the food that they were made of. There's also the option of still working with clay and somehow bringing together the food aspect of it as well as the emotional aspect, such as how could i exemplify through clay the taste of sweetness, perhaps the bitter pucker of a sour grapefruit, or perhaps the sublime pleasure of aromatic cube of fromage.

LET'S HAVE A GREAT SEMESTER! I LOVE YOU ALL!! TOGETHER WE CAN FLY AWAY AND MAKE RAINBOW ART EXPLOSIONS!!

Research Blog:
Subject: Food/Textures....and maybe smell. ( Food / Senses?) ((We'll see where we go with this ))
Since I've decided to combine the topics of food and textures, I've decided to first start my research with the artist that first inspired me into the ways that unnatural depictions of food can either hold a social motive or alter the ways that we typically think of food. I first stumbled upon Klaus Pichler in the photography magazine in the ELS room, his work is a works social motives through a shocking display and stunning photographic work of rotting foods that are meant to bring public awareness to the vast amounts of food that is wasted every day. The photos, if they were of perfect and ripe foods, would be truly delicious, but since they are so disgustingly rotten they confuse our senses of what is beautiful. Pichler's photos also opened my eyes to the glorious textures that are hidden within food, either rotten or ripe

A second artist that peaked my interests is Jasmin Schuller. Schuller creates mouth watering desserts with a gory twist, they are made out of all meat products, including blood, beef gelatin, raw meat, grease cream, and organs. I love the concept of this due to the fact that it is so ingrained in our minds what something appetizing is supposed to look like, yet, when we find out what it is made of, we are repulsed! This makes me wonder what other media you could create something beautiful and appealing with but the contents are actually taboo and disgusting.

Another useful insight of how we process food besides its visual representation, was an article by Amy Flemming, which discussed the importance of textures within food, and how if even those textures are mismatched to what we're eating, awkward, or downright weird, they can completely turn us off from whatever food we are eating. Such as, what if ice cream was chewy? or, why is tapioca pudding so offputting to so many people? I my self suffer from a sever texture aversion, *cough cough bananas*, and anything that slimy or chunky I can barely stomach

 Taking a completely different approach to how we decipher 'what is food' is Grant Achatz, who serves up 'food' in an entirely avante-garde and somewhat weird way. Achatz breaks all the ground rules on what the general population considers food, I personally think of nice and greasy Bob's burger. Instead of serving up healthy portions of grease, Achatz instead flavors, well, air. Actually its helium that's contained inside a (somehow..) dehydrated apple and sugar 'ballon' which the patron first inhales the air and then munches on the casing. 

As suggested by Rhona Shand, I feel the most appropriate person to contact about new methods in creating and displaying works would be James McBain. He seems to posses a wealth of knowledge about the food industry and culinary techniques, something I most definitely do not, as I can hardly make a hamburger.

These artists, but culinary and photographic, have broadened my views on how we can manipulate they typical visions of what should be food, as well with the other two articles, why we are so rooted into our habitual senses and how innovative culinary artists are working to change our views of what can be delicious! Schuller's work really inspires and interests by how she totally messes with what our first visual sense contrast with what our brain is telling us is in the food. I know that ice cream is made out of beef paste and hearts...but damn, it looks pretty tastey. I guess I really like the thought of 'messing with' the viewer. Such as, how could I display some delicious looking food, but emit a horrible and pungent smell of rot. Or could I create some disgusting mound of grossness, but waft the smell of delicious fresh cookies throught the viewing area. I'm having a lot of questions running through my head right now, and I'm to lazy and tired to type the spillages of my brain, so I won't bore you all until I see you in person next.

 Klaus Pichler
.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/04/klaus-
pichler_n_1399825.html#s836005&title=Watermelon
Jasmin Schuller
http://www.boredpanda.org/sweet-meat-desserts-jasmin-schuller/
Amy Flemming: Food Texture: How Important is it?
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2013/jul/02/food-texture-how-important
Edible Ballon
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-02/15/edible-helium-balloons

Portfolio Creation: Brainstorming

    In our most recent discussions and post-it note planning we were asked to choose random and virtually unrelated word and categories and think of ways that we could find mutual ground the two, and to think of ways that these two could correlate into a cohesive and unique idea for future works within any media. The two terms that struck me as the most interesting were 'food' and 'textures'.  A recurring idea that has come back to me through these terms would be the ways on how I could express specific emotions through foods. This could be done either through the textures that are within certain foods or possibly the way our brains connect certain foods to emotions. Such as when you're sick or cold, you typically like to eat a steaming bowl of chicken noodle soup.
  Something else of interest that was also discussed was how differently we interpret food devoid of color, rotting foods, and unripe foods. Another part of this that I believe would be interesting would be to mix unflattering smells, such as rotten bananas, with pictures of ripe bananas and analyze how differently we view the food. This could also be done in reverse, such as if the glorious smell of a grilling hamburger was inhaled while someone viewed a photo of an old, rotten, half eaten hamburger.

Recent works: Presenting Artworks

Below are several works that I made over the late summer weeks at Phoenix Fired Arts in Joplin Missouri. For the first time in my Ceramic career I feel like I have begun to make work that I am actually beginning to feel proud of! I'm progressing in many ways and my works are becoming increasingly technically sound. I've recently been on a binge of making bottles, and have been working on achieving larger and more complex forms. I'll upload some of my more recent unfired works soon.

 Below is a work in progress at Pheonix Fired Arts in Joplin Missouri. It is a closed sphere with dimensions approximately 6x6.

LAST CRITIQUE!! (for the Semester)
In all honesty I don't necessarily have any pressing new work. What I will be showing is finished glazed works and works that I brought last time that did not get to talk about. The work that I was able to create while we still had time to work with wet clay, reflects more of the ideals that Jamie suggested. He suggested that instead of thinking of works singularly I should begin thinking of them as consecutive works and how in turn they can work together, such as he negative spaces they can create and dynamic and unique ways of arranging them. As most of the works i create are simple in form, I attempted with the glazes to give them a personality of their own, letting instead the colors and textures that emerged allow the work to flourish and become something beautiful. The glazing, stoneware firing, or finishing process of ceramic works speaks to me.In a way it's almost like observing a life process. The clay is formed, simple to begin with, yet with gentle or stern guidance it become something ornate and special, perfectly unique. The ceramic works can be compared to people in themselves, some introverted and sublime, yet with further observation we can find special quirks and subtle beauties, while some are extroverts, overpowering and extravagant but even these posses intimate delicacies.

Current works, Others in kiln

After the last critique I left with a new perspective on things, a 2 Dimensional perspective. Jamie Oliver Suggested that I consider things in a two dimensional way, so that I was not just looking at vessel as it stood alone but to consider paired our grouped with other vessels over similar or varying sizes and shapes. I found this information highly useful as, of all the ways I had looked at my and other peoples works, I had never thought to think in groups and the dynamics that the subtlety of pairing could create. Therefore in the last remaining week of wet work in ceramics I approached my throwing not as singular works but how what I created could work hand in hand or against what I had previously thrown and what I would throw in future. I tried to work in all areas, tall, skinny, wide, carves, hollow and so forth.