Girlfriends Forever

If you were at the Chicago Gold Coast Art Fair you would have seen me with my new items.  My business card had an error.  If you would like to get in touch with me you can email me at
chris1clay@yahoo.com.   Sorry for the inconvenience. 


 

Teaching Ceramics in my Home

This is Dino, one of my home art students

I teach a few children, in my home studio. Dino is one of them. Here he is with his latest creation. Its a green man with jointed arms and legs. Dino is a very creative kid with amazing skills. I only hope that I can accommodate all of his ideas. He enjoys creating some of the tiniest ceramic piece with the greatest of detail. The first piece he created in my studio was a ventriloquist on a chair holding his puppet. The entire piece was only 4 inches high and had amazing detail. Before he came to my class he was creating with sculpey clay, a material I have never used. I believe sculpey is a plastic type product you cook in a toaster oven. The finish on sculpey is nothing like ceramic, it has more of a plastic feel and look. One of the difference about sculpey clay is that is comes in colors so Dino had to paint his piece with underglaze. I was imagining that this would frustrate him, but he came through with flying colors. He has incredible patients. He is an interesting character!

Figments: Test Tiles Gone Mad

When you work in ceramics there are a lot of variables. And one of the toughest variables to get right is the finish. You want a finish that will complement the piece you are creating. It's like a marriage and the wrong combination can ruin your work. And unlike the painter who just squeezes color out of a tube, the ceramist quite often must experiment with chemicals and firings to arrive at the finish they desire.

This experimentation can takes days, months, years!!!! It is a hard job! At times it feels like the perfect finish will never be found, all the while you play the part of artist, chemist and mad scientist. I know people who have been working and experimenting for years who are still not satisfied, still searching. They try out a glaze on a test tile, fire it in the kiln, like the results, put it on their precious sculpture, fire it up, only to pull it out of the kiln in great disappointment. "Another piece bites the dust and now back to the drawing board". Its a hard life we live. But we love it! We are passionate about it! And yes we are a bit crazy!

A Brief Lesson on How to Make a Test Tile.
Take a small rectangular piece of clay, lay it on the table. Lift one end of the rectangle and fold up until it resembles the seat and back of a chair. Voile you have a test tile! Not to hard eh?

Well that's one way to make a test tile!

I wanted a test tile with a face since most of my work involves faces and I might find that helpful in determining my results. So I pushed a face onto a blob of clay and just smashed the clay around the face and to my amazement my test tiles became little "figments of my imagination". I tried out a few glazes and enjoyed my results. They are a wild bunch, but now back to the drawing board!

Play

The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect

but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity.
The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.
Carl Jung

An artists work is suppose to have a cohesiveness, one that causes their work to be recognizable to all. I would love to be able to attain this. I do try! Most of my work is cohesive! But at times, when boredom sets in, or my mood is down, or I haven't anything left to express; I pick up the clay and mindlessly play like one might doodle, but what happens is usually surprising and quite often great!

It's not that I am bragging, its just that it surprises me. It throws me off balance! And the really weird thing is that so often this work gets greater accolades from my fellow artists and mentors than the work that I have so tirelessly toiled over.

MY PORTRAIT

My portrait

Drawn by my granddaughter, So Young.
Does she see my big, black crayon line too?

FACES

On Being an Artist

I was not creative as a child. While working in my coloring book I made extra sure to stay within the lines by taking a big black crayon and diligently retracing all the outlines. I was also a shy child, worried too much about being accepted and so in that very same way I locked myself in, surrounded by a big, black crayon. I am the last person that ever thought I would grow up to be an artist!

One of the things that I love about clay is the fact that it gives me the ability to play. My best work comes when there isn’t a project due and I am just fooling around. It’s that free play, without the worry of what will this be, and how will it sell, that I love.

Oh the faces, I just love them, I have hundreds of them. I intend on covering the world one face at a time. And they work great on their own, hanging around my neck. People ask me why there are no smiles and I just shrug my shoulders and keep creating, always smiling from within.