Final Reflection

It is time to end this part of my inquiry. I feel like I learned a lot and am finally accepting that I am not going to achieve my goals without studying them for many years to come. In fact, I may not achieve them in the same way I originally thought, but will, instead, be content with engaging in the process and sharing as I go along. I am feeling more comfortable with my level of skill because I can operate well enough in a ceramics studio to support my future art-based inquiry.

I really connected with the readings I chose, especially “Artworks as Dichotomous Objects” and Growth Mindset. I feel like I understand better why some art achieves a surreal quality. I had the false impression that creating something uncanny was more of a cheap trick than a challenging balancing act. Pepperell has given me more strategies for my toolkit; I look forward to using them to increase the sophistication of my work and to help my students do the same.

Applying growth mindset strategies and realizing that I need to work harder at establishing constraints are the two main lessons that are going to influence my pedagogy. I have made progress in accepting that life-long learning is about the journey not the destination and that has brought me a degree of equanimity. If I don’t do it now, I can try it later.

I will close with two quotes from Dweck.

Effort is one of those things that gives meaning to life. Effort means you care about something, that something is important to you and you are willing to work for it. – Carol Dweck

After all, “You have to work hardest for the things you love most.” – Carol Dweck

Setting up a Show

So I get to have a show! I can put art in it from Ceramics or Textile Arts.

I really wanted the centerpiece to be my airship, but it is too large for the cabinet. Someone else displayed some art on the ground in the hallway though. So I am going to cover my reclaim table with pretty drapery, and use a cable lock to attach the ship to the table and rest it on top, centered in front of the cabinet.

Then I will arrange my other work in the cabinet around it in categories with artist statements for each category.

I decided that artist statements were overkill and let the art speak for itself. I went with a title, a link to the blog and a little quote about the difference and the tension.

“Realizing how different bodies fit together energizes the space that separates them.”

Glazing and Firing

Finishing pieces is always a lot of fun.

I accumulated pieces throughout the year and fired and glazed and fired again all at the same time. Doing it this way meant that I had a full kiln and that I could consider different approaches for each piece with the previous treatments fresh in my mind.

For my woven pieces, I painted on a layer of superior glaze, each in its own solid pastel colour, to avoid distracting from the details of the weave. I was really pleased with how the glaze softened the edges. Everything looked really rough before they were finished. One of them didn’t make it. Oopsy!

I wanted a natural look for Not a Window. I left the curtain alone because I thought the raw finish was more reminiscent of cotton. I painted and sponged brown underglazes onto the frame. I wanted to make it look like wood, but it turned out a little paler than I had hoped. I guess I could add more glaze next time.

In finishing Disparate Parts, the goal was to draw attention to the split form, to the relationship between the edges, and to the way the string interacted with the ceramic background. I chose to glaze the bodies in white superior glaze and to finish the edges and holes in black.

It was a real balancing act to arrange all the piece in the kiln. Some needed support, and some needed to be poised on stilts so the glaze didn’t adhere to the shelf. I couldn’t see what I was doing so I used my cell phone as a periscope.

I went with a minimalist finish for Next Step, and printed black superior glaze onto the raw bisque surface. I used a doily to make the prints.

Growth Mindset was kind of a free for all. I went with greens, yellows, blacks and browns because it was about growth. I poured the glaze onto it straight from the jars. Then I spread the glaze that had puddled in the crevices around with my fingers. Next, I tried to emphasize surfaces and edges, or even implied lines by painting on bright and dark lines.

It turned out so well, I don’t think I can break it now.

 

Display and Presentation

Art has travelled a long way to be featured in art galleries and museums. Art used to be considered private property. It was even considered sacred–something to be cherished and protected in back rooms of churches or hung on the walls to represent deities. The modern perspective on art is that it is for public viewing. Enter the museums. Art objects are still elevated above ordinary objects, however, even when they originate as an ordinary thing. Consider Duchamp’s “Fountain.” This is where display and discourse come in.

In her article “Discourse and Display: The Modern Eye, Entrepreneurship, and the Cultural Transformation of the Patchwork Quilt,” Karin Peterson outlines how presenting an object in a modern manner, with accompanying text, can change the way it is perceived. While her discussion related to patchwork quilts, the methods are equally relevant to textiles and ceramics since both are more commonly considered the domains of artisans and craftsmen since so many of the products have a utilitarian function.

Peterson details how two art connoisseurs “sought to minimize the traditional connotations of quilts while emphasizing visual qualities that match “high art” works, [which] suggests that although some “minor” arts (ceramics, fibers, glass, wood, other “folk” and “ethnic” arts) now have a presence in the fine art world, the terms of that presence seem to require, at least initially, a rejection of other kinds of cultural contexts and, by extension, people who make an appropriate cultural objects in ways that do not solely rely on dominant aesthetics.

So how would the public expect an object to be displayed if they were meant to think of it as art? Peterson emphasizes formalism, defining it as “the theory that the proper way to look at a work of art is in terms of its formal qualities, that is, line, shape, and color. This perspective claims that all works of art can be evaluated solely on the basis of the visual experience and rejects the notion that subject matter, or the viewer’s own life context, should interfere with appreciation of the visual qualities of a work.”

Galleries attempt to display art works in a pristine and non-distracting environment consisting of neutral walls, open spaces so the work can be inspected at a distance or up close, two-dimensional works are framed and sculptures may be viewed in the round. This prioritizes the design of the art object by removing any context. Supplementing the work with an artist statement can provide insight into the process and the vision of the artist. When I display my art in the cabinet at Scarfe, I will follow the same principle. I need to consider the individual display of each item and how it relates to its neighbours, and to construct careful statements that add to understanding rather than simply describing what is there.

Karin Elizabeth Peterson, “Discourse and Display: The Modern Eye, Entrepreneurship, and the Cultural Transformation of the Patchwork Quilt,” Sociological Perspectives. Volume: 46 issue: 4, page(s): 461-490
Issue published: December 1, 2003.

https://doi.org/10.1525/sop.2003.46.4.461

 

 

Next Step

I made a piece that balances. I usually do.

Next Step is a metaphor for art-based inquiry. It shows how engaging in inquiry is so different from following a pattern. Through trial and error, one has ascended a stairway of knowledge and, at the top, has nowhere to set a hovering foot. Implied is the notion that this explorer has placed each step before climbing on, and must lay another tread without everything falling down.

I also like how Next Step communicates that I am going to continue my inquiry and push my process further.

Tile

This was one of the bigger challenges I set for myself. I wanted to merge the materials, to create a kind of oscillation between textile and clay, foreground and background, form and line. 

It is still wet in this picture. I rolled impressions of lace into the clay and spread a macramé net that had been soaked in slip across the surface. Then I rolled parts of the net right into the slab. I peeled out the top strands and trimmed them away, transitioning from impression to cast.

After this was bisque fired, I tried both to emphasize and obscure the different forms and impressions, at first following the track of the strings and then meandering away from them. I layed down splotches of colour that passed over and under the net and sponged on other glaze patches that merged and emerged. I feel like this was a good first attempt. Now I need to make about 100 more.

Crocheted Leaves

I used normal cotton yarn to crochet my leaves. They were really big and bulky. Not really what I had in mind since I wanted to create something more delicate.

Crocheting is new to me, so I am still looking up stitches and the process is slow. But it is something that it is easy to take with you. You can see my first leaf is laying on a Dungeons and Dragons character sheet; I was balancing making and enjoying time with teenage sons.

So this one didn’t make it to the kiln either.

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
― Thomas A. Edison

Growth Mindset Art

As a educator, I am really excited about this project. Any time I teach a unit on art, I hope to be able to include this as a companion project.

The assignment is to create an artwork from the “failures” of other artworks. In ceramics, this happens all the time. I started saving my failed pots and turn them into a hand-built sculpture.

Failure is information-we label it failure, but it’s more like, ‘This didn’t work, I’m a problem solver, and I’ll try something else.’ – Carol Dweck

At each stage of this project, the artwork must not be considered precious. After this is fired, I could smash it and reassemble it in a new form. The important part is to put as much effort into the design process every time you create.

“I believe ability can get you to the top,” says coach John Wooden, “but it takes character to keep you there.… It’s so easy to … begin thinking you can just ‘turn it on’ automatically, without proper preparation. It takes real character to keep working as hard or even harder once you’re there. When you read about an athlete or team that wins over and over and over, remind yourself, ‘More than ability, they have character.’” – Carol Dweck

Disparate Parts

I took a step back from the corsets and decided to throw some pots that I would mash together. I planned on throwing different pots, cutting them in half and finding ways to make them look like the different parts belonged together.

Throwing pots is hard. (This is hard. This is fun. – Carol Dweck)

 

I ended up with some I could work with. They were asymmetrical already, so I decided to keep the mismatched matching parts apart together. (Did you follow that sentence? 😉

I like the second orientation better.

Big Doily

Well that didn’t work.

What can I learn from this? What will I do next time I’m in this situation? – Carol Dweck

It needed to be soaked more and moved around less. Each of the fragments was very crumbly, so they just didn’t absorb enough slip. I did try painting more on, but it obviously wasn’t enough. I had visions of a giant flower that I fired in pieces and put together like a puzzle, but now I just have doily fired in pieces. Maybe next time.

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