Back to School Update: Phew, made it through midterms

So much to catch up on since my last post - school has been crazy busy. Midterms for studio classes are definitely different than writing mid-term exams for traditional academic courses. Tense none-the-less because you find out your mark to date and get feedback on how you are doing. I am happy to say that everything is going well so far - phew.

Ceramics continues to be as much fun as playing in the mud. Yesterday I finished glazing my mountain cups and teapot and I am anxious to see how they turned out once the kiln is opened - very nerve wracking. Our next project is "Thinking outside the pot." We have to pick our favourite food and create a unique serving piece and four individual whatevers to eat from. The big challenge is that it can't look anything like a normal serving piece. My mind immediately went to chocolate and then to Brownies and Fairy Cakes. I am busy trying to figure out how to make an enchanted  tree into a serving dish.

Fibre has been very interesting. Our assignment was to make a non-representational sculpture out of paper. What started out to be "Exploding Geometry" ended up with wild moments of Collapsing Geometry. It's about a foot shorter than it started out. Things I learned: paper weighs more than you think and avoid anything dynamic if at all possible.

 Then came felt hats - this is the test model with Hobbes doing his Napoleon interpretation. The final products are on display so no pics unfortunately. Now we are making a garment out of something recycled with the object having to reflect the source material. I have some beautiful old pillow cases from my grandparents which are being transformed into a dream catcher vest as we speak - pics to follow! A great way to use old linens and doilies.





We have been doing some very different things in Drawing. First we created a collage and then drew it thinking about 2D versus 3D representation.

 

Another class involved drawing lit folded paper in a very dark room - tough on elder eyes that don't like to adjust to light changes well. This is a composite of four students work - mine is in the bottom left.

Our last assignment was to draw big things very small. "Reality Stranger than Myth" depicts various current and historic images from the Greek Island of Santorini in a volcanic cloud. As I put in the last image, I realized that it was starting to look like some kind of demented ice cream cone.

In Painting class, the instructor added a collaborative twist to a collage/painting project. After some discussion, my partner and I discovered a common interest in Star Trek (albeit lapsed on my part) and we went crazy from there. It was interesting to reflect on how this quirky series has played a part in the lives of several generations. 

Our most recent assignment was to bring and wrap an object to serve as a subject - the wrapping was meant to add meaning. Curiously, this is Barry's trumpet wrapped in my shawl and his tie. Without trying, it took on a very feminine form - I'll say no more. I really pushed myself to experiment with complementary colours and cool and warm colours as well as different techniques - it is gradually sinking in (I think).