Cylinder Research

Essential Question: How do artists become more informed about their craft?

Objective: Discover something new about ceramics, ceramic artists, ceramics techniques, etc.

I looked at a group of cups made by Melissa Mencini from Austin, Texas. They are about 6 inches tall, have a bump in the middle, and widen back out on top. The glaze is a white background with blue diamonds across it in sort of a checkerboard pattern, and then on top of that is a beautiful blue flower design. It looks like fancy china. The design wraps all the way around the cups, and the flower part looks different on each one.

I absolutely love the blue flowers on these cups. I wonder how she gets them on the cups. Does she hand paint them, are they stuck or stamped on? I also wonder what inspired these cups. They are different from her usual work, which she says is inspired by urban life in Austin. She did also say that she pulls from fabrics from around the world, so maybe that inspired these cups. The flowers were very detailed so I would be very impressed if she hand-painted them.

Raku Research

Jason Green is inspired by old homes and places with wear and memories. As a kid, he scraped wallpaper off the walls of his home and loved the overlapping patterns and the idea of all the different people and memories connected to the wallpaper. As he got older, he continued to be inspired by those things. He tries to bring those elements of wear and dimensionality into his tiles. He experiments with texture and glazes to get the right look. He fires the tiles vertically to get them to run together, and glazes them in a way that seems to have several different ideas running into one cohesive piece.

I love these tiles. The colors are beautiful and I love how they run together in different directions. I love how your eyes bounce around the piece and how it has a 3D feel while still being 2D. I wonder how he works on the pieces. Does he do one big slba and then cut them? Does he lay out all the tiles next to each other? Does he do each tile individually and go off of what the last one looked like? These tiles are so interesting to me and I really love them.

Ceramics Research #3

I looked at an interesting tulip vase. The main shape of it is a bit like a teapot, and it’s sitting in a dish. It has little spouts coming out of the sides all around it for individual tulip buds. The artist says she tries to blend function, ornament, and pattern to create something that has a blend of historical and contemporary pottery. The vase is white and has little purple flowers on it in an onriental pattern/style.

I think the way this looks is very intriguing and it makes you look twice. I like the way the arms are staggered and layered and the way they’re bent. I like how it blends the traditional style of floral china with something more modern in the shape. I wonder where the artist’s inspiration came from. What would make her think of that shape?