Ceramics I

This semester, the project I was most proud of was the Multiple Pinch Pot Project. I was proud of this project because it was probably the most difficult project I did this year. The shaping of the four individual pots and getting them to stack on top of each other was very difficult and slipping and scoring on the arms was a process. Besides the amount of work put into this project, it was my favorite because I love the way it turned out. Although there is little to no use for it around the house, I love the alien as a sculpture. The carving of scales on the body and different patterns on the arms was also something that I believe turned out really well and the way the colors combine is cool as well. I learned that clay can be very difficult to form and make do weird things from this project, but once I finished the actual sculpting, the glazing and carving was easy and fun.

This class has changed my view on ceramics by making me realize that it can be really difficult. I have made many things out of clay before but this was the first time that I had so many different projects where I had to follow certain guidelines. Some of the projects were quite difficult in trying to get the correct form of the pot and I struggled with projects where we were trying to mimic others work or get an exact shape. This realization makes me appreciate artists who create extremely complex sculptures out of clay. The detail that goes into them is unreal and now from my experience of having to slip and score and shape clay in an exact way, I respect artists who do that much more now. However, because of this class. I have improved a great deal at sculpting and forming pots and have a better understanding of how famous artists do it.

This class is pretty well sculpted in general. I really like the projects that give me a lot of independence and let me make my own decisions of what to make. Some recommendations I might make are maybe giving fewer projects and giving the students more time to work on glazing and perfecting their pieces instead of cramming in other projects. I also didn't like the projects where we had to mimic others work because I feel like that took away some of options. However, I realize that these are good practice because they are difficult and really begin to improve the artist. Overall, I think the class is pretty well laid out and maybe with a few small modifications, it could be perfect.