Thursday, April 5, 2012

Thursday Thoughts: An Aha! moment

Work in Progress


This semester I'm enjoying taking a figurative sculpture class at a local community college.  Our latest project involves interaction of hands in ceramic clay. At one point our professor demoed how to make fingernails by pressing and almost flicking away clay with the edge of a flexible potter's rib to create the nail bed. I admit I cringed every time I saw a piece of clay go flying thinking about what if I did that while working with metal clay. After watching me attempt to create nails with the rib, he said, "why don't you use the needle tool?" D'oh, of course!  In general I've tried to stick to the techniques we're using in class as maybe there will be something new I can take home with me. In this case I went home wondering about what kind of "bad" clay habits I've acquired without realizing it or so far haven't questioned.

With the little bit of clarity from sculpture class, I'm more motivated to keep cleaning my work area and figure out my optimum table set up. The new start for the next batch of projects is my fuel to start experimenting as I know there are other opportunities that will pop up before the next deadline too.

Other than that, my sculpture now has a pretty good manicure if I don't say so myself!

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