May 6

My project is totally coming to a close.  Today I finished glazing all of my work, except the candleholders, which are still being bisqued.  I glazed an extra plate, the six teacups, and my serving dish.  And then I loaded the kiln, which really took some creative problem solving skills.  Which I didn’t have, in the end.  Luckily Mr. Barmonde was there with his.  I knew there was enough space in the kiln to fit everything, but I couldn’t figure out how.  I was working on that for a super long time, and then he just came in and shuffled things around and figured it out in a few seconds.  I have trouble with spatial relationships.  I have a photo of my friend and I trying to fit a small sofa into the trunk of a car.  Unsuccessfully.

            I also played around with how I’m going to set things up for my show on the 22^nd.  I’m going to set up the dishes like they’re on a dinner table, instead of doing things on individual pedestals.  I think I might be able to get a table from somewhere, but I might just have to cut a piece of plywood and set it up on a pedestal to make a makeshift table.  I want it to be big enough to fit all of the pieces, including the tea set and the serving dishes, but I think I might have to set those things up on individual pedestals.

            I think I’m going to make tiles.  I don’t really have anything left to do that’s related to my project.  I have to find a table and all that, but I still have almost two weeks.  I’m going to make a bunch of tiles with blind contour drawings on them, and maybe I’ll sell them or give them away as gifts.  Did I already talk about this?  Well, I didn’t know if I was going to have time before, but I totally do.  I have to figure out what the best way to make them is.  Maybe I’ll have to make a mold.  Maybe they already have a tile mold.  That would be easier. 

            Tomorrow I’m going to start the kiln.  I loaded it today and tomorrow morning it’ll be good to go.  I have to wait because somebody needs to be here when it turns off, to make sure everything is ok with it.  Then I’ll have everything out on Wednesday or Thursday and I’ll be able to finalize my set up.

Glazed! And almost ready to load the kiln!

Ready to glaze!

May 3

            I’m so glad that it’s the weekend.  The past few weeks have felt so strange.  This week especially.  It felt like it went by so fast, but when I think back to Monday it seems like a really long time ago.  Today I started painting the underglaze on my blind contoured teacups and serving dish.  And I finished the three candleholders that I have, so they’re ready to bisque. 

            I started playing around with ideas for my final presentation.  I’m pretty sure I’m going to be able to have my show in the gallery, but I just need to figure out when.  I’m thinking about having a couple of the place settings out on a table, like it’s set up for dinner.  The thing is that you can’t see all of the blind contours when they’re all set up, so I think I’ll also spread some of the work out on individual pedestals.  I also need to find an appropriately sized table to set things up on.  I was t thinking about using a round table.  I could just get a round piece of wood and put it on some makeshift table legs and throw a nice white tablecloth over it.  I don’t really know why I was thinking round.  I think because all of the pieces are round, there aren’t any oval platters or anything, so I think that it would relate to the set better.

I’m really excited to have a big meal with all of the dishware when I’m finished.  I’ve been thinking about what to make.  I think I’ll make soup and then stuffed peppers or something fun like that, and then a fancy dessert that we can eat off the salad plates.  I think salad plates can double as desert plates.

I’ve been drinking a lot of London fogs recently.  It’s sweetened earl grey tea with steamed milk.  I just use honey to sweeten it, but most people use vanilla syrup.  I made one with almond syrup the other day.  And steamed almond milk, always.  We might get almond milk at coffee o, but it’s way more expensive than soy.  We’ve had it for the past couple weeks, just to try out.  My boss said that it’s almost four times as expensive as normal cow’s milk.  And almost twice as expensive as soy.  I always feel weird about drinking a lot of soymilk.  Maybe I’ll just bring my own box of almond milk with me to work.

May 2

            I had so much homework to do today!  I had to take notes about Quakers for world religions, and I had some multiple choice AP prep things to catch up on for English.  I got everything done in time, and I blind contoured my serving dish and the six teacups.  I still need to go over the drawings with underglaze.  I feel like I’ve been spending a lot more time doing homework lately.  I think it’s because I’m so tired all the time, when I get home I just go to sleep right after eating dinner, and then I leave all of my homework for my free blocks.  It usually just takes one or two blocks, which is good.

            I think that because I have a little more time than I had planned for, I’m going to try to work on the textile aspect of the project that I had talked about in my original proposal.  I might go to the fabric store and get something for a tablecloth, and maybe play with some embroidery or something.  I really like embroidering.  I had an idea for a pot, like a vase, that would be double walled, and the inside wall would hold water for flowers, and then the outside would have holes in it that I could embroider on to.  I think I would draw something on the outside of the pot and pick where to put holes for the thread to pass through, and then embroider when it comes out of the glaze firing.  Hopefully the glaze wouldn’t fill in any of the holes.  I might have to put tiny drips of wax on them so they’d stay clear. But I think that would be a really fun project.  I don’t think I’ll have time to do it while I’m still at tabor, but maybe sometime in the future.   I think I’d have to spend a really long time figuring out how to make a double walled vessel, before even thinking about how to go about the embroidery though.

            I’m really excited to be able to do things like that in college.  I think the foundation year, my first year, is going to be super challenging, with all of the drawing classes and 2d and 3d classes that I’m going to have to take, but it’s going to be so amazing to have that education before I start getting more creative with my pots and my paintings. 

May 1

Today was the community service day, so I didn’t actually get to work on my project during the day.  We went to the Schwartz Center in Dartmouth and did art projects with the kids.  We made cut outs of facial features and helped them glue them on paper to make family portraits.  It was kind of stressful because I had never spent any time with kids with disabilities like that before.  But it was good.  Then when I came back I got interviewed about my senior project.  For Tabor Today I think, or something like that.  They made a video.  It was kind of uncomfortable.  But I think it went ok. I got to unload the kiln, too!  Which is always just so exciting.  Everything came out successfully except one cup had a little crack in it. So now I have six dinner plates, six salad plates, eight cups, a platter, and four bowls.  I’m going to load up the kiln again probably on Friday, and all I have to do is blind contour the teacups and the serving dish. And glaze them.  Oh and I have the candleholders that are still in the works. 

            We’ve been painting the walls at coffee o.  They were this really ugly peach color and some of them were dark brown.  Now they’re a really nice buttery yellow color.  It’s been really fun going after school, from around six until around eleven, cleaning and painting.  And we’ve had pizza and Indian food, and it’s just been really nice and fun.  I’m going to go again tonight and then I think Thursday too.  It looked so dirty before and now it just looks really nice and clean and bright. 

            I started reading a book called The Street Where the Heart Lies by Ludwig Bemelmans.  He’s the person who wrote Madeline.  And he also writes actual novels and he’s an artist.  It’s about this person who was pretty well off, living in Paris, and he decides that he wants to leave everything behind so he throws everything out of his window and takes his mattress under a bridge and lives there.  I like it so far.  There’s a whole community of people who live around there who he’s describing and it all sounds really picturesque.  It’s translated from French, and I think it makes it sound kind of funny.  After I finish it I want to find a copy of it in French and read it.