Dicipline




     For my choice of discipline in initially chose sculpture, having enjoyed  both ceramics and sculpture equally during our elective term. It was soon obvious to me however, that sculpture was not the way for me. i just did not get it. it was far too abstract for my way of looking at things. i love form and i love art in which i can see what it means or represents. So for our first sculpture project we were given a brief on the human form and had to reconstruct in our own way ,,so i first started to make a realistically proportioned figure out of chicken wire to be told that it was not the correct approach, that it was too realistic.

The next effort i tried to make it a bit more abstract and began to make again a figurative piece from logs of wood,,,, again this was deemed too "obvious"

so after a lot of thought i decided after three week that i had to change disciplines so i looked to join ceramic and thankfully there was a place for me


                                            ceramics


the first project i was given was based on the narative
we had to pick a saying or metaphor or lyric and create a piece based on that. the saying i chose was
                                               "The Journey Of Life"


and to represent this i looked to Japanese tradition and picked the "Koi Fish". in japanese legend the Koi represents the life's journey and ambition or to strive for achievement and the waterfall represents the struggles and obstacles we face along the way

using a mix of porcelaine paper clay(for the waterfall and waves) and stoneware(for the fish and base) i mades my sculpture

my piece was then painted with underglaze using ,,orange and red for the fish and turquise ,blue, and green washes for the water with white for highlights, then an transparent glaze was applied which made the colours really come to life


also while making the fish we made some pieces for the raku kiln. these were dipped into a turquise copper oxide crackle glaze

then they were put into raku kiln before then being put into buckets of sawdust and then water to enable the raku process to happen

once this was done the pieces were ready to be cleaned

my favourite raku piece was the bowl i reclaimed from the skip and dipped into the glaze

here is ciaran doing a decal transfer demonstration

    yes after my experience in ceramics i think that i have definately made the correct choice
                                                                         i love it