Artist Statement: For this project, the assignment was to create anything using multiple pinch pots to do it. I decided to create an alien because they are so open to the imagination. They can be tall short and look any way you want them to look, so I figured that this would be a good chance to incorporate many pinch pots. I created this work by measuring out two evenly weighted balls of clay and pinching them on both sides, making them thinner and in the shape of a semicircle. I then used slip (very wet clay) and scored the edges of the semicircle with a needle-like tool (making hash marks for the slip and other clay to cling to) to attach the two semicircles. I repeated the attachment process four times as I created for hollow circles. I then created a semicircle and didn't attach it to another one for the base and slipped and scored the four circles and base together. I also used little bands of clay to wrap around the places where the circles attached and smoothed them out to make it stronger. I then made some different roles of clay and slipped and scored them to the body and wound them around every which way to create arms. I did the same for horns and the made two little circles for eyes and a little role for a nose and attached them as well. The last thing I did before glazing was carving scale like things with the needle tool onto the body and two of the arms. I then used this tool to make different patterns on the other four arms. (two a line pattern and two little holes). For glazing, I wanted to use many different colors so I used PC-12, a blue glaze for the dotted arms, PC-59, a deep firebrick glaze for the scaled arms, Iron for the line-patterned arms and PC-23 for the head. Lastly, I covered the whole body with SM-27, a teal glaze.

I chose to create this specific artwork because there are so many ways you can take aliens. No one knows what they look like so they are fun to make. I contrasted a lot of differnt colors in this piece to create a crazy effect as well as not really balancing the colors or the location of the arms to create the same effect. I also varied the patterns on the arms to create a more interesting piece and make it so more than one pattern covered the whole alien. This project evolved from an alien with only levels to a taller alien. I also didn't planned to incorporate such a large variety of colors and create so many arms but in the end, that is what happened.

There is no real meaning behind my artwork. It was simply meant to be a crazy piece of clay that made people happy and laugh when they looked at it. I can be really crazy sometimes and so maybe the craziness of the alien reflects my personality. I am really proud of the way the arms turned out in this piece. They really create the sense of a weird creatures and this was my intent. I was also surprised that everything stayed intact, which means that I did a good job slipping and scoring. In this piece, I really struggled with glazing. After I completed the arms, I found it extremely difficult to go over everything three times on the body without getting a huge amount of glaze on the arms. However, if I took it slower, this ended up not being as big as a problem and I dealt with it. The slipping and scoring was also difficult but it turned out effective because nothing fell apart in the kiln. I think that if I had taken a little more time doing the body glaze, this piece could have turned out a little better with fewer off-colored spots on the arms, but this wasn't that big of a deal and I am very happy with my final product.