Gary Jackson: Fire When Ready Pottery
A Chicago potter’s somewhat slanted view of clay & play |
Every Thursday during a typical Wheelthrowing Camp is Terra Cotta Day!
I try to tell them in advance that it’s going to be messy. A lot messier than stoneware.
Generally they scoff at it. And think that I’m exaggerating. And then THIS happens…
Gooey-gloppy messy hands… and arguably the dirtiest wheel EVER!!!
Good thing we have Rule #3… “Whatever mess you make, YOU will be cleaning up.”
And she did.
Sculpture Summer Camp is quickly coming to an end. The kids are working fast & furious to get all of their sculptures finished. The sculpting & building of their sculpture sis don… now they’re onto detailing & painting. Which is when the sculptures really come to life!
Soon enough, their sculptures were finished… painted, detailed, done.
Then they were quick off to the tables with fans blowing on them.
Got to get the paint dry before their parents come to pick them up at 3:30pm.
And if that weren’t enough… Ellie and I decided that her pompous penguin needed a fancy floor to stand on. So we broke up some glass tiles so she could mosaic the floor. Especially fun since the files were donated by one of my adult pottery students. The store where she works for was looking for someone who could “reuse” these tiles somehow instead of throwing them away… and this was the first of many projects to come! Thanks Meredith for the donation… I thank you, Ellie thanks you… and the Penguin thanks you!!!
So here are a few “finished” sculptures by my talented Summer Campers this week.
NOAH’s Ganesh Shrine
ELLIE’s penguin complete with top hat, monocle and mosaic tiled floor.
RACHEL’s frozen blue ice dragon.
SAM’s aviary tree with five birds a flocking.
JAMES’ trio of Olympic winning birds
MARYMAYA’s howling timber wolf.
SAMUEL’S version of a Giacometti sculpture.
AVA’s version of the Chicago Picasso sculpture.
Another great week with my Summer Campers!!!
So my campers are back at Lillstreet building on the inspirations from yesterday’s Art Institute Field Trip. They’re now each building their own large sculpture starting with wooden bases, wire armatures and a LOT of newspaper & tape!!!
And thanks to my teaching assistant Julia who gets to watch as Ellie’s penguin comes together.
When the bases were complete, we started covering them with plaster gauze.
The theme of this week’s Summer Camp is “Sculptures Small to Big.”
So what better place to get some inspiration than the Art Institute of Chicago?!
My campers went on a fun field trip for a splash of art inspiration & education
at the museum and Millennium Park. Starting with some visual fun at The Bean…
“Cloudgate” by Anish Kapoor.
Then it was time to go to the Art Institute of Chicago. Filled with inspiration for the kids.
We toured the museum and made frequent stops for the kids to sketch.
Brancusi sculptures.
Giacometti sculptures.
Dubuffet maquette sculpture.
Picasso maquette sculpture.
Chagall stained glass windows.
Calder maquette sculpture.
Jackson Pollock paintings.
Katharina Fritsch sculpture.
And everyone’s favorite… Roy Lichtenstein. Ohhh alright… enough already!
We’ve already FIRE’ed… we’ve already FORGE’ed… so now it was time to FEAST!!! The last day of camp is a big potluck lunch where we all bring in food to share. The kids pulled it together and we had a wonderful FEAST to celebrate the last day of this Summer Camp. Well done kids!!! Thanks for a great week!
The last day of camp is also the day to award the prize for Best Cookie in the “annual” Chocolate Chip Cookie Bake-Off. Congratulations to Sam (and his Mom) for baking the cookies that got the most votes on Wednesday’s challenge. He gets the trophy plate… and we got a lot of yummy cookies!!!
After several productive days, my Summer Campers finally got see their thematic placesettings come together. The terra cotta came out of the kiln, we assembled their cutlery pieces and put it all together to great acclaim. They should all be very proud of themselves for a wonderful week of Summer Camp… and some wonderful dinnerware sets!!!
MADELINE’s placesetting
TULLIAH’s placesetting
LOUKAS’s placesetting
THEO’s placesetting
ZOE’s placesetting
ELIZA’s placesetting
DEIRDRE’s placesetting
ARIEL’s placesetting
ELENA’s placesetting
ELLIE’s placesetting
LILY’s placesetting
LYDIA’s placesetting
SAM’s placesetting
And I guess if something was destined to explode in the kiln…
what better than Sam’s VOLCANO PLATE?!!!
MIYA’s placesetting
So much fun to see everything coming together. The clay handles the kids made on Monday & Tuesday are fired and out of the kiln. We’ve been inserting their metal forks, knives & spoons into them. So great to see how much work these kids have cranked out this week. We have a WONDERFUL group of kids this week. Which is perfect since this is the BEST Summer Camp week of all of them!!! Just sayin’… of course I may be a bit partial.
Some great new tools to “play with” in the Metals Department. And with some great instruction from Pam, we went relatively uninjured for the week. Good job Campers… thanks for paying attention & watching your fingers!!!
With some basic metalsmithing skills under their belts, my Summer Campers continued to work on their thematic placesettings & cutlery. There was a lot of pounded, banging & hammering going on today, as well as some torch work for annealing the metal. Flat metal turned into textured, decorated and curved spoons, forks & bowls!
Annealing with torches… softening the metal for easier forming…
Drilling and riveting…
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Gary Jackson: Fire When Ready Pottery
Lillstreet Studios ∙ 4401 North Ravenswood, Chicago, Illinois 60640 ∙ 773-307-8664 gary@firewhenreadypottery.com |