Artist Statement: For this project, the assignment was to create three different spheres: a sgraffito sphere, a sphere inspired from something human made and a sphere inspired from something in nature. For the subject of the sgraffito sphere, I simply carved cool designs into the soft clay to create the sgraffito. This wasn't inspired by anything. The man made sphere was made the same way as the sgraffito sphere until the end where I added a ship, towers on either side of the ship and a brick-like pattern on the side. This was to create a human made effect. The nature inspired sphere was again made like the others, but once I had created the sphere, I cut out different animals and attached them to the sphere to indicate nature. I created these spheres by getting two balls of clay and measuring them until they were roughly equal in weight. Then, I pinched continually as indicated in the first process picture to form two hollow semicircles. I then scored around the circumference of each and wetted it with slip (clay and water) and attached them together to form one hollow sphere. This process was identical for all three spheres until this step. For the sgraffito sphere, I covered it in three coats of the same purple underglaze and used the needle like clay to create the patterns. After this had dried, I used the HF-10 clear glaze to create the shiny effect after firing. For the human made sphere, I used the same needle tool to carve out the two towers and the boat from a slab of clay I rolled and then attached them to the sphere with scoring and slip. I then used that tool to carve out brick like patterns around the sphere. Once this had dried, I covered the brick with an Iron glaze and used the DC-2 gold glaze for the ship, the water and the towers. This also turned out shiny after firing. Lastly, for the nature inspired sphere, I used the needle tool to carve out dolphins, seals and other animals and attached them with slip and scoring. For the animals, I used a HF-167 clementine glaze and for the base sphere, I used a SM-27 teal glaze. In the end, the clementine and teal were shiny.

I chose to create the nature made sphere because I have seen things like this before with the animals popping off the sphere. This almost created the effect of them chasing each other around the sphere which I think is cool. The glaze for this piece was inspired by the Miami Dolphins colors as they work really well together. I also worked on balancing the animals around the sphere pretty equally. This project evolved from the idea of an animal standing at the top of the sphere, but I decided that this would be too fragile and that it would be cooler to incorporate multiple animals in the piece. For the human made sphere, I was inspired by the ending scene of Lord of the Rings, where the ship leaves with Frodo. The ship goes between two tall towers on cliffs and so my piece was inspired by this. I tried to use balance on this sphere as well by putting the boat pretty evenly between the two towers. The color is also an important part of this sphere because it creates almost a sense of a city of gold and if you look at the picture of my inspiration, the light creates a glow of gold. This project evolved from simply the boat on the sphere, to the boat between two towers, to the boat, the towers and the brick. I thought with all these features, the piece would seem more inspired by something man made. Lastly, the sgraffito sphere wasn't inspired by anything except my imagination. I like patterns and zentangle, so I incorporated many different patterns, lines, shapes. The texture of the glaze also turned out interesting by varying on different parts of the sphere. This project didn't evolve much because I never really created an idea in my head. I made up the patterns as I went along.

These projects relate to my life for many different reasons. For the sgraffito sphere, I love zentangle and patterns so this was cool for me. One of my favorite movies is Lord of the Rings and so the man made sphere was a reflection of that. For the nature inspired sphere, I am a big nature person and I like football so both these elements were combined to create this sphere. Also for the nature inspired sphere, I was most proud of the way the colors turned out. I think I chose really good colors to represent the Dolphins and the colors go together really well. For the man made sphere, I was proudest of the way the way the bricks looked. This was a tedious process carving out all those bricks, but I think they added a lot to the project. Lastly, the sgraffito sphere's variety of patterns is what I'm most proud of. Sometimes in these kind of projects, it is easy to continually use the same patterns, but the variety is cool. In these pieces I struggled with coming up with different patterns that actually looked good on the sgraffito. I also struggled with the tedious process of carving out the bricks on the manmade sphere. The glazing was also very difficult when I used multiple colors because I didn't want them to mix. However, for all these struggles, the answer was patience. If I was willing to take more time working, these things would not be a problem. In the end, I was happy with the way my nature inspired sphere turned out. However, for my other two spheres, there are a few things that I believe I could have done better with. For the man made sphere, I believe I could have done more on top of the sphere to make it more interesting than two towers and a ship and for the sgraffito sphere, I feel like I could have used a better underglaze and taken longer on the patterns doing things like cleaning them up and making them more interesting. In the future, I can try to fix things like this on other projects, but overall, I am happy with my final spheres.