Dualityby Lucy Sandin 2015
Duality: The Juxtaposition Between Solemnity and Frivolity
8" (high) x 10" (wide) x 5" (deep)
Materials:
Clay
Slip
Underglaze
Artist's Statement:
This Duality project was made with the goal of creating a piece that explored the duality between two opposite forces, or two things that go hand in hand. These forces could be things like "happy and sad" or, "night and day". I chose to make a piece that focused on the duality between frivolity and solemnity. I decided that an image frequently associated with that of solemnity was a businessman. It is a common conception that businessmen don't have a ton of fun and they walk around in their black suits with their grey ties and view the world with a solemn eye. I decided that I would make the torso of a businessman into a flower vase, and pin a smiling flower to his lapel, similar to something a clown would wear.
To make this piece, I rolled out a slab and then used the coil technique to build the body of the businessman. I slipped and scored a tie to him, and sculpted out the lapels of his suit coat. After that, I slipped and scored the yellow center of the flower to the suit and then went around slipping and scoring on the petals. Instead of using normal glazes, I used underglazes so I could create the colors that I wanted, and then I painted over them with a clear glaze to make everything shiny.
I like this piece, but I was a little rushed in making it because the end of the year was so rapidly approaching. If I could change something about this piece, I would make it taller. I liked the idea of making it a vase, but I think it might be a little short.
Duality Vase
14" x 9" x 13"
Clay, Under Glaze, Glaze
Artist Statement
For this project, we were assigned to create a piece that represents duality, examples of which include the contrast of good and evil, yin and yang, body and mind, and can be defined as "a situation in which two opposite ideas or feelings exist at the same time" by Collins Dictionary. For my project, due to lacking time and working to finish another project I was behind on, I was not super inspired by anything new and unknown regarding this topic, so I decided to follow the light and dark trope of duality, for one cannot exist without the other, we can define light because we know dark and vice versa. With this idea in mind for the exterior decoration of my project, I began researching forms of pots and vases that appealed to me. I discovered an older vase on the internet with a similar shape to the one I ended up creating, as I knew I wanted to include a handle along which the border of light and dark would run. Without mirroring my design in an identical fashion on both sides of my vase, I decided to wind the curving pattern around the body, however switching from dark on light to light on dark along the separation running straight through the vase. This explores duality in that the dark and light alternate to create a pattern continuously across the vase, and demonstrate that the contrast we see only exists because of this two-way relationship of black and white.
This project began with research on the forms that appealed to me, and once one was selected, I tried making a life size template to work with as I built my vase. As in my historical coil pot project, this started as a good idea and a great guide to creating the exact form I was looking for, however my scale tends to become larger than intended, so I discarded the template quite quickly. I used a circular slab base and lots of coils to create my vase, which was a time intensive process as I had to continuously wait for my pot to set up and dry enough to continue to add weight above. I pulled a long handle, which proved to be a challenge as well as it was so long and flimsy to work with, and I was concerned that it would fall in under its own weight. After some structural assessments and alterations I was able to get it to stay up and on, which left me with smoothing out the final surface of my vase. Using a to-scale tracing paper cut out template of the design I wanted, i started sketching out the surface design. I used a black underglaze and filled in the main shape or negative space depending on how one looks at the pattern. Partway through this project, my handle broke at the base and partway up, which wasn't a terrible issue as I figured I could just patch it. Later on my handle broke in a third place, which made the process of fixing it completely back into one form more challenging. Once patched, glazed, and fired once, I used a clear glaze over the top to add a shiny finish.
Once I was set on the form I wanted my vase to take, determining how I wanted the design I had created to wrap around the body became my next challenge. I ended up creating a to-scale paper cut out of my vase from the side and drawing on one of the options to see if it appealed to me in its full size. From there I was able to use a tracing paper cut out of my favorite shape and used it oriented in a variety of manners across the vase to create my pattern. Once my handle broke, not once but twice, I had to do additional revisions to patch my vase in addition to reglazing where the 'glue' had covered my design. With three breaks to glue back together, making the handle fit just right was super challenging, and left me with a wonky, messy version of the handle I originally had. I attempted to conceal the break with glaze, although it didn't come together quite as cleanly as I would have liked. Furthermore, the kiln did not get up to temperature during the first glaze firing, so the vase looks a bit cloudy and overall not as clean as I want my pieces to look, however I anticipate this to be fixed with an additional firing at the right temperature.
Process Photos