That Sherm is Art
A Semester Broken by COVID, but Built by Clay:
Across this semester I have seen big improvements in my ceramics journey, I guess that tends to happen when you start with no experience. I feel I am still not great at forming my surfaces, especially when it comes to making clean surfaces. However, I feel I got a lot better at carving into those surfaces. I see this best when comparing the divots in my guitar case in love and consumption compared to the triangles on my coil vase. Overall, I think I was able to get over a lot of my frustrations of getting everything to be perfect in this class. While I still definitely try and make things perfect, I have accepted that the best parts of art are the imperfections, the little pieces showing the creator is a person and not some untouchable god figure.
Noah Sherman
Consumption in Surround Sound
Medium(s): Clay
My stepdad has always been a role model for me, this included a hard transition in 2018 when he deployed to Afghanistan for a 9 month deployment. Knowing how much he loved guitar, I decided to teach myself how to play.
With this being my first real ceramics project I wanted to try and bring another art form I have enjoyed, in this case music, into this new medium. However, with it being my first project, I definitely had issues with creating the shapes I was envisioning in my mind. I was having trouble, more from a craftsmanship side, where I couldn't get my surfaces and shapes as clean as I wanted them. However, as time went on and I got more and more practice with the medium, something that seemed near impossible when constructing the pedal, began to come into fruition, with the construction of items like the amp and guitar body, where I felt my shapes were a lot cleaner.
Noah Sherman
Carving into Oceans Unknown
Medium(s): Clay
To be completely honest I had no idea of what to do going into this project. It almost felt like I kept doing things completely by accident and it somehow turned out better than I could have expected. For example, I wanted the tentacles to be a smooth white, but while carving I created that texture pattern and really liked it, so I kept it (and inevitably used it in other places on the piece).
I feel I had some trouble with getting the shape of my piece, not only are my edges wobbly, and my base a bit rolled, but some of my darts are simply uneven between the two sides. However, I believe this is what inspired my underwater theme, and the idea just sort of blossomed. One of my sides had this really big ridge, so I made an ammonite (its sort of like a hermit crab mixed with an octopus).
Noah Sherman
The Lost Relic
Medium(s): Clay
I have developed a bit of a perfectionist mindset through this class, and it really poked through during this project. Trying to keep the project perfectly level while also matching every angle really started to break me. While I felt building everything was really tough, I really enjoyed carving it. Coming up with a way to shade it without using 2 colors was really fun.
I named the project "The Lost Relic" both because it was based on a Mesopotamian artifact found in a shrine, and because I glazed it to be mossy agate, which I think help builds on that idea