Building "Growing Up"

Hello! This project was my last hand built ceramics project I did last quarter. The hand building class made me absolutely fall in love with ceramics, from the planning, the slow process of building and refining, and painting on the slip or glazing the pieces. I found it a much more calming process than design has felt recently, giving me an outlet for true creativity rather than trying to create things that will appeal to hiring managers.

This piece was meant to be a representation of me, and honestly ended up becoming a character of it's own. The character had a head of a cloud, to represent how I often feel like I'm drifting. In college especially, with so many moves and meeting so many people, I don't often feel like I have my own place in the world. Rather, I feel like I'm merely trying to get from Point A to Point B and not truly enjoying my time.

The flowers and pose of the figure, however, are the opposite of that. The flowers that grow out of the head and hands of the piece represent the few things that do make me feel grounded. This includes family, significant others, and pets that I know I can always go back to. They also represent how I'm growing as I'm drifting and am never a stagnant being, even if it feels that way to me. The pose represents me being physically grounded. Friends often refer to me as a safe place, so I think I wanted to embody this feeling in the size and pose the figure is in.

The figure is built out of slabs, pinch pots, and a hollowing out technique. In order for the massive piece to be light enough to pick up, and not explode in the kiln, I had to make sure that all pieces were hollow enough. I also had to make sure there was air flow throughout the body, in order for the piece to dry evenly. I wanted to use multiple techniques of ensuring the body was hollow, as it made sense for each individual piece. For example, the torso was made out of softly leather hard slabs, so I had less clay to carve out and the body could easily stand on it's own before attaching legs or arms.

Before the piece could be fired, I also chose to paint my sculpture with slip. I chose slip over glaze because our glaze is not really made for painting, but rather for dipping. I knew I wanted my character to have overalls, as it goes with it's gardener sort of theme, but it also happens to be one of my favorite outfits. I also knew I had small details on the sculpture that could not be accomplished with glaze. After the bisque firing, it was sprayed with clear glaze-excluding the head and hands. The head and hands were left unglazed to give it a more matte texture, which differentiated it from the clothing.

Once finished, coming out of the glaze kiln with only one medium crack and a couple of small hairline cracks, it was fixed up and placed out in the art building during the student show. This allowed other students to see what is possible with hand building, and hopefully inspire them to take ceramics class. Below I'll share some of the process, such as maquettes, slip painting, and a perspective of how big this sculpture is. You can see pictures of the finished sculpture over on my Projects page, under Miscellaneous.

Thanks for Reading,

Kayla :)