Heads Project!

Artist Christ Keeney-who is a graduate of L.S.A.D came in this week to teach us how to make ceramic heads.

                                          
                                                      Irish Ceramacist Christy Keeney

                                                        
                                                                 One of Christy's heads.


Hmmm... i did enjoy this project alot, although now, looking around at everyone elses pieces i'm a bit bummed out at how mine has turned out. I guess i wasn't really aware of how broad the project could be. I took it too literally and wasn't really able to experiment and explore how abstract and unique the project could be.
 Yes, i will admit i did a pretty accurate SURFACE representation of a late 50's male human head, but the way in which Christy taught us how to construct the head added some extra frustration considering the awkward shape my head then had.
However, painting it was fun and i'm pleased with the result, but if i could do it over again i think i'd look at and take on the project a whole lot differently.

I was happy with the end piece and i think the painting i did really helped bring out the realistic qualities of the whole thing.

Narrative Project

This week was all about exploring our individual options in the formof a project based on a Narrative-i.e. the title of a book, a lie, a joke etc..
It was up to us to explore this in depth and come to a final plan for the following 4 weeks of work.
Having been to Venice and having one of my main contextual artists from the previous semesters, Dale Chihuly who worked on an Island off of it, i though it would be a good place to begin.

                                                                                  Chihuly in front of on of his pieces

So, i knew i wanted to do something surrounding the idea of Venice and luck for me, I had also read
Shakespear's 'The Merchant of Venice' in school, so it would be the perfect place to get a good quote, and i chose;
                                                   ''All of my riches are at sea''

Ceramics Week 1- Pot Vessel Object

We were given the brief to explore the breadth of ceramics and what we understood from the terms 'pot' 'vessel' and 'object'
My group and i divided our tasks into certain areas and then went and did research.
My task was to research the earliest forms of ceramics and hence learnced alot i didn't know before. My main research surrounded 'The Venus of Dolini'-See Fig.1- (a ceramic statue dated as far back as 25, 000 BC) Ancient Aurignacian Figurines of animals-See Fig.2- (dated back to 30,000 BC) Yuchanyan Cave Pottery See Fig.3- (shards of pots fouund in China dated as far back as 17,500 BC) and Ancient Jomon Pottery See Fig.4- (found in Japan and characterised by the rope techniques they used, dated circa 10,000 BC)

                                                          Fig.1 The Venus of Dolini

                                            
                                                  Fig.2 Ancient Aurignacian Figurines

                                                        Fig. 3 Yuchanyan Pottery

Fig.4 Ancient Jomon Pottery

Final installation!

I knew i had to put tentacles onto the jellyfish but was apprehensive at first....

I was worried that when i hung the jellyfish at an angle it would be dificult to get the tentacles to hand at the same angles without an industral fan or something. Also, i really liked the simplicity of the wire and didn't want to ruin it by adding dribs and drabs of materials and things- problem solved, i simple made the tentacles out of the same thin wire, ensuring then that the sweet simplicity of the pieces would remain intact aswell as holding the angle at which they were hung. Very happy with the finished project!

Went abit over-board i think...

Breeding like rabbits!!

Tentacle madness!

Tried experimenting with some Das clay to make jellyfish models- unfortunately never got around to going down to the ceramics dept. to get a proper one done-but sure, plenty of time for that carry  on!

The Blue and White tentacle piece i made reminded me of a Dale Chihuly Glass sculpture piece i saw in Murano.. I looked into him and wow, i've always found glassblowing so interesting and cool and seeing it first hand is pretty crazy...but this guy-well, he's nuts!

Wire and Wool

Hand-knitting tentacles proved to be quite succesful!

So here's my fairylight idea. Luckily i chose the right time of year to come up with this idea because the fairlights were easy to find. It took alot of confusing re-wiring and re-tying all of the wire in order for there to be seperate strands(tentacles) out of the one lenght of lights. once they were secured i wrapped wool around it in order to get rid of the fairylight look. Pretty happy with how it's going, unfinished as of yuet becuae as you can imagine it's quite time consuming- however, it looks AWESOME in the dark!

Wire head of the fairy-light tentacles