"Green City"
"Green City"
This piece marks the beginning of a series commenting on the growing competition for space between humans and nature. As we stretch further into the wilds, the wilderness returns to find its lost place within our urban society. That weed that fights to crack through the pavement and the fox that slips across my back yard are refugees reclaiming their territory.
The "NAUTILUS IMPERFECT" series was designed to celebrate porcelain in all its moods. Cracks are left untended and broken pieces of prior work added to the clay. Doing this liberated me from my preoccupation with perfection of execution and let the porcelain speak with a direct voice.
The piece at right is from the "Connections" series. They are meditations on the journey of life with all the choices we make, the things we leave behind. Connections made, missed and broken.
SKINNER BLENDS AND PORCELAIN
I have recently begun exploring the use of Skinner Blends with real clay. As many of you might already know, Judith Skinner invented this process in 1992 as a way to color polymer clays and the technique translates well to real porcelain as you can see below.
Coloring clay this way is so fast and easy that most students master it during the first few hours so we can spend the rest of the workshop time learning to use the colors in our work. Their creativity is unleashed and the results have been awesome. With only a few months of learning under my belt, I can truly say that I don't believe there will be any limits on the evolution of this process.
My next workshop will be Feb 10 - 16th, 2013 at the John Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC.
IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT COLORING CLAY, ASK YOUR FAVORITE ART CENTER TO SPONSOR MY WORKSHOP.
