This Writing is About Creating my Sluice With Ceramics

     During the 1st half of the Spring 2018 Ceramics class I primarily focused on my proposed project, which was for me to create a functioning sluice. I had a fairly clear vision of what it should have looked like once I accomplish it and I already had a layout prepared in my head. And I honestly did not see this project to be anything other then easy. But that did not end up being the case. When I 1st sketched my plan, I did so thinking that I wouldn’t have any difficulty with having this piece have multiple, removable parts to it. I discovered fairly quickly that my assumptions were wrong…

     At 1st I saw myself being able to create the sluice, contained within a box like frame. That I would have been able to reveal and use and could afterwords close up and have set up on a shelf as just part of the decor. However I discovered that this was not going to be as easy as it sounded as soon as I finished completing my 1st attempt to make this frame. It was actually to bad that I now saw this route to be one way more difficult then I felt I should attempt considering that this was for my class and was to be graded I had thought that I could have had a front cover to it that I could have slide in when it was not in use and would have been able to have been stored along the back when in use. And that I could have slide back in place when it was not in use. So my 1st frame had a slice that ran ½ cm around the front body of the frame. I saw that this front cover could be a big problem extremely easily because it would have needed to be so precise or it may not have fit and could have blown the whole thing, well kinda, maybe. My not wanting to take this chance is what brought me to the end of this 1st frame. I had forgotten that you can’t really add wet clay to dry clay. So when I tried to fell in the ½ cm grove I had carved into the top body of the frame I got to be refreshed on just what can happen when you attach dry to wet. Long story short that was the end of this 1st frame attempt. I broke apart the sides and feed the monster all the pieces except for the back. I decided that I’m going to keep that. I have it sitting bone dry in the cabinet because I have not been able to as of yet figure out that I want it to be.

     Anyways back to My Mine !! I started in on the frame again. This time I was going to try something a little different. I felt that a smaller frame for this would be a much better size for this. Half the size of the 1st frame I attempted. We live in a really really small place, and that 1st attempt was just too big. I was still intending, at that time, that I would still be able to go with my original plan. Which was that I would be able to have this thing be made with whatever moveable/removeable part that I wanted. So I figured I would have pretty much whatever could be removable I wanted to be removable. So the dirt feed tray could be. Every shelf could be. And the dirt tray for the bottom could be. Making up my mind that they were not going to be anything but stationary came to me pretty quick because there’s doing your art for art's sake and the completely different art form that comes when you are doing your art for a grades sake. Now if this was being make for art’s sake I would have keep at figuring out a way for this thing to have had the removable parts that I had wanted. But since this was art for class I decided that I should stick with this new frame that I now had spent a lot of time on and which I really did not think that I would have had the time it may have taken me to start again and I would now just finish getting this thing together. Which turned out to be the best thing that I could have done because I probably wouldn’t have gotten it finished in time if I had continued going down the route I had been.

     I secured into place two leaves which would allow me to place the mesh upon it and which allowed the water to run down it and drain onto the next layer. I ended up spending a lot of time doing this because I did not want the mesh shelves to pool the water that drained on to them and I wanted them to easily drain down to the lower leaves. Once I had everything in place I crammed it full of stuffing so that everything would stay where it need and I left it completely alone to slow dry. I had no idea whether or not this all was going to work . So when I got to try it out the first time I must admit I was relieved to see that it was going to work. The water does not pool up on either of the shelves and it drains down like it should. And the holes for the tubing surprisingly still fit the tube into it and did not even need to be sealed to prevent leaking. The tube fits in nice and snug. Another thing that I was concerned about was whether or not the water would be able to run through it correctly. I was not sure that the bottom area where all the water drained was going to be the right size to allow the water to be able to suck back up and cycle through like it would need to. I was also concerned that when it shot out onto the first level that it might just be to strong causing the water to shot out from the sluice completely. So once again I must admit that I was way happy when I plugged it in and it all ran like it was supposed to. All in all I feel this first project of mine worked out really well and I managed to do what I was hoping to be able to do and that was for me to create a working sluice which it appears I made.

     

     

Another Writing of Mine

I decided to post all of my writings that I have done throughout the years that way they are not just lost within my computer never to be read again. This is another writing I did while taking Art Fundamentals and it tells about the Solar System I created using paper mache 

1/29/201

 I am an artist by nature and I have attempted to hone in on my skills a number of different ways. I’ve done beadwork, loom beading prefered. I’ve done crocheting, painting and album assembling. I have take gallery and if given the opportunity I could assemble a show that would draw in almost every eye. I put together my own furniture and would love to get a chance to create many more windchimes with all my pieces and parts. For my art fundamentals class I created using paper mache a room sized Mural  of the Sun and all the planets running along the ecliptic plane  of our universe that glowed in the dark a multiple of colors. My instructor was Jason ____ and his opinion on it was it drew in your eye and took you along a path with great symmetry for the planets This image does not do it justice. I had one of the other art students who’s pretty tall take the image and he had to stand on a chair in order for him to capture the whole piece.



I have included links to let you view some of my other art pieces and some of my photographic imagery.

My Ever Growing Creations 

Fine Arts America Art Gallery

I Wrote About My Ceramics

Your curious to know how my second half of the semesters project went for me and i must say that I think that it went fairly well. However I also feel that I would have been stressing it big time if I had not started when I did. Luckely I did start my second project early and already had started working on my second building when our proposals for this project where due. My proposal was for me to cteate a set of city sky line buildings that were candle holders.

     My first building went together pretty easily. But clumsy me had to grab it one day while it was drying right on the frame of the windows and my finger broke right through causing four windows to become one. It also caused my what should have been a four story building to look more like it was a old town malt shop instead. It still worked though because it was a building and it also is a candle holder. With this building I was actually successful at making a bottom fitting tray to place a candle on.

     For my second building I wamted to make a building that would have long windows along the top of it. Which I was successfully at accomplishing, however instead of it appearing like a building with cool looking long windows across it's top floor it instead appeared at least to me like a church type building. Which I def was not intending for it to resemble at all. And when it got places next to my first building they instantly became some old mining ghost town. Which was fine because then my mine had other pieces to go with it and it no longer was standing alone. I am definitely glad for that because it had been to me looking kind of alone and out of place which I was not liking. So I most certainly am glad of that.

     For my next building I wanted to try something different that would hopefully make my next building look more like a city building like I wanted. When I made my first two buildings I used a boxes for their frames. For this next building I was going to try to make it like the one I had seen searching Google. It had multiple floors and you could see through to the other side of it. I figured I could pretty easily create a building similarly to those I had seen by creating a frame cor each floor that would have several pegs standing on it creating windows all around it. I had figured that it would not be very hard for me to be able to build a possibly 10 story building as long as I did the floors individually and assembled them together one on top of the other. So I made a whole bunch of pegs because each floor was going to need to have 12 pegs standing from it. I created the first floor just how I had seen andit came together really easily. The second floor too. But by the time I was finished with the second floor I was seeing it drying before I was done making the other floors so I figured I had better start putting them together before they got to dry. I flipped the second floor onto the first and it fell off on a couple of the sides but I was able to save the floor by just setting it back on top of the first floor where it was supposed to be. I went back to securing the pegs to the first floor and it was not untill I haalmost all of them secured that I noticed that I had flipped it on to the first floor incorrectly and I now was hoing to need to do some corrections if I was going to get this floor on correctly. I had figured that I would be able to keep the peg framing from falling in on itself by placing plastic inbetween the pegs which made each window but I saw pretty quockly that this was not going to be enough to keep them from falling in so I took some thick card broad that I had and cut out little cubes that would fit inbeteen the peg and make the windows not be able to cave in. I covered each cube with plastic so that it could be separated once it dryed enough to be able to support itself. This worked out pretty well and I was able to get the two floors together. Much more time had passed by the time I had this accomplished so that there was no was that I was also going to be able to create one of the other buildings which I had thought maybe I could have also have created. The first of them being my favorit building The Transamerica building the other being like the round one that is just outside LA that we always saw off I10 on our way to Magic Mountain each time we went when I was a kid. While I was thinking that this could be possible I researched all I could on the layout of the Transamerica building because I wanted mine to be a fairly exact replica of it but lots lots smaller. As I researched I also keep working on the next floors that I would be placing on the ones I had already gotten together and I also started making walls that were going to be the walls of my round building. So by the time I had gotten the two floors of my first building securely together I also had the walls of the first to floors of my round building made and ready go be placed together along with the next two floors that were suppost to be able go be placed on the first two. This ended up not happening though because both of the new floors I had made I also managed to mess up. I had also been working on putting together a middle divider floor that would be totally different from the others. I felt I still have enough time to be able to at least get a few more floors for this first building made and secured to the others before it was due but that sure was not going to be happening once I totaled the two floors I had just created. I did however still have the round building coming together pretty well and I was just to the point where I was just going to be able to place the first two floors of the round building together. Unfortunately when I tried putting them together it did not go very well and the second floor fell into the first. This totally messed up my round building and put an end to its creation. I however thought that I could probably save the buiding by making it into a light house rather than a skyscraper. So I rolled out and cut out what was to be the top part of a light house and was letting them firm up some before I attempted to try and place them on the messed up round buiding because I did not want them to do as its second floor had done and also cause this building to be a bust. I ended up letting the new top pieces dry more then they should have and I figured this was the end but I still tried. I placed the 4 sides over the first part that I had created and I sealed it all up hoping that this might save it and I could still make this into a lighthouse. At the sme time I was also working on that middle piece I mentioned earlier and it was not going as easy as the floors had because with this floor I could not easily place some cardboard into the areas that might fall in. I was instead just having to rely on plastic to do the job. While I worked on this middle floor I also began working on another set of two floors that were to go over the middle floor. I was also working on what was to be the bottom part of this building and be were candles would be placed. I had come up with the idea of creating small bricks that I could create a wall at least 4 bricks high. I quickly came to my senses amd desided that, this was heading to be a task which I in no way had the time it would have required. Just creating the approximately 50+ bricks which I used to begin crearing a botton candle tray and whatever it was that it took for me to line up side by side just above the second floor took me awhile toform and place. I could and wanted only to imagine what m8re it would have taken me to form and place the remaining bricks would have taken me forever. So I ended my brick idea with the single layer that I had already placed above the second floor and ceased my progress on the bottom tray that I had started.  

From Within Update

I had also covered this, From Within, with black paint. Some times I just want to kick myself in the butt when I let myself go for it and do as it wants. Yes it feels great doing it however it can be a bit complicated and definitely challenging to recover from. And when it starts to recover very relieving.

Secluded Beach Front

When I started this piece .during my 1st semester in Ceramics I had  planned for it to be a book end but when it came out of the kiln it no longer wanted to stand on its own. Which is the reason it's leaning on what ever that is behind it.

A Peek Into My Head

In We Go !!

I created this on my phone with the Ibis Paint App. When I think of black holes in space this is what I see.

It Was Covered With Black

I just started working on this - Flying Colors, again. The last thing I had done was to cover the whole thing with black so when I got it out I could not really see anything however I've worked on this picture so much I totally know where everything is supposed to be and and hopefully when I finish this layer with black and do what I'm going to do on it everything will be showing as they should. Plan to post another image soon so everyone can see how much it changes.