Coil Ceramics

I must admit that, after watching the videos over African and Native American pottery techniques, our style of making coil pots is much friendlier for beginning students :) The native american style is really interesting because everything is made out of scratch, I'd love to try that some day. The lady making the coils was so fascinating because it's like she knows just the right amount of clay and just how much and how long she will roll it with her hands to make the right length. The polishing with the rock was amazing and the kiln was really neat too. The african way was so interesting because the clay is porous yet the technique was so fast. It got my attention how they start from the lip to the bottom.

As for my aesthetic, I'm really drawn to the thin and curvy vessels. Painted decorations and texture (actual or implied) is also really cool.

Chinese pottery seems to share a common style of shape and composition of images, and they're usually glossy and ceramic. The blue and white color selections seem to be popular in traditional chinese pottery.

Mata Ortiz

For my coil project in Ceramics, Susan talked to me about Mata Ortiz Pottery. Mata Ortiz is a small village in Chihuahua, Mexico. Even though I am from Chihuahua, I had never heard of this town and its famous pots, so I did my research and I found a lot of amazing designs!

My favorite thing about these pots is how there is so much variety to them. Some of them are matte black and shiny black at the same time. Black on black just looks so elegant, just as much as the abstract designs painted or carved on all the pots, they have a strong directional force all around.  And I must say that I like their unstandard openings on them, they compliment the pot well.The carving is also one of my favorite things about them, because they also create directional forces and so the pot doesn't have to rely on just a painted design to achieve this.

Mata Ortiz was pretty much about to become a ghost town due to its economic issues, that was until 1940's when Juan Quezada taught himself to work with clay and created amazing works. He sold a few pots to a store called Bob's Swap in Deming, New Mexico, there an American anthropologist, Spencer MacCallum, came across the pots and decided that he had to find the artist. Years later, MacCallum managed to find Juan, and offered him a stipend for his pots. Soon Juan was making enough profit that he decided to teach his family, and then the entire town. The economy of Mata Ortiz relies on agriculture and ranching, but much of it relies on the pottery.

If you want to see more work in person, Johnson County Community College actually has Mata Ortiz pots in their permanent collection. They are located on the second floor at the Regnier Center (right across from the Nerman museum) along with the contemporary Native American collection =) 


http://www.bienmur.net/files/2010/09/Mata-Ortiz.jpg
http://www.azulamericas.com/2011/06/09/mata-ortiz-pottery-and-the-economic-impact-of-the-arts/
Wikipedia.org

Functionalism

When I took philosophy class in the summer, we talked about the subject of existentialism which means that essence comes after existence, but that clearly only applies to humans. The idea of essence coming before existence (or form follows function) is very interesting as well. If you think about it, you can't just make a fork and decide what to do with it, first you decide the function and then the form follows.

I've used this concept of functionalism before, when I was in my AP art class senior year in high school, I decided to make art that wasn't meant to hang on the walls but be wearable at the same time.
As for classes I'm currently taking, functionalism clearly influences graphic design, specially in the area of industrial design and commercial art because a design is used for packaging that is aesthetically appealing.

An artist I've been looking at lately that seemed to follow this idea of functionalism is Frank Lloyd Wright. As an architect and furniture designer, he created functional things that were appealing.

 


As for my next project, my idea is to create an elegant looking and multitasking toothbrush holder which also holds my small hotel soaps that I've been collecting over the summer. It is meant to be a little shorter than a tooth brush, and wide enough to hold the soap and the brush. It would be round all over with a flat base of course.

Pinch Pots

1. Choose one pinch pot that you feel moves your eye upward (art term: directional forces).  Write the number down and discuss one specific characteristic of the pot that makes this happen.

 

  

  The one characteristic that makes this curled, leaf-like bowl create an upward directional force is the repetition of the creases around the bowl going in a vertical direction. Also, the form of the bowl helps achieve this directional force by “curling” up.

1. Choose one pinch pot from this PowerPoint that you enjoy looking at.Compare and Contrast these two works.  What are the similarities?  What are the differences?  Any other insights, for example how do they compare to other works, in different media, that you like?                                                                                 

MR-5

When I see Martin McWilliam’s piece, my eye instantly follows the upward directional path that the curves create. The repetition of the layers also creates a rhythm which adds to the directional force. The contrast of color between white and brown (and dark brown in some areas) creates asymmetrical balance but the texture on the surface unifies the layers despite their change of color. 

Mary Rogers’s piece offers a variety of repetition of pattern and texture. There are two directional forces in this work. The dotted lines in the middle direct our eyes towards the center where we find a carved pattern that leads our eyes down and back up.

Both ceramic pieces are organic shapes with repetitive patterns that create rhythm, allowing our eyes to observe the pieces carefully.  The color selection of McWilliams and Rogers’s is similar because they’re earth tones, however, McWilliam’s color selection is more contrasting. As for texture, McWilliam goes more for the stamped texture and Rogers’s piece has carved texture.