Looking back on this project, I wished I could of pushed some ideas further- or had some better ideas.. But time, and creative thought was against me in the end.

I liked that I was able to make a body of work- based on ideas that relate to each other. And I’m also glad that this is done.

The End.

determined to say the lease to make THE Ice Hand work- I tried again, this time just laying the glove on a flat plane.

and i left it in the freezer for a day or two.

and apparently i left it in too long- because weird awkward bulge is now happening. geezeee.

I’m pretty much tired of this, but i want to see it through:

so i de-gloved it

i wrote the words standards out- i thought worldview was  a little to loaded. and i waited for the ice to melt. which i decided wasn’t to exciting.

so i put it on the stove, and it started spitting and steaming, and i was making dry ice- and my room mates didn’t like this, they thought i would hurt the pan..

so i switched it to the wok, which everyone was ok with for some reason. and this worked- but melted the fingers really quickly.

once the fingers fully melted, i decided to just let it go-

down down down the drain.

it was at this moment i realized i could put the glove INSIDE of the mold. I don’t want to talk about it.

Well.. I really wanted to put the face masks into the glaze firing- but it just was not ment to be. The bisque fire that happened earlier this day was a disaster- 4 pieces exploded in the kiln and every a little on edge. So the whole idea of putting some what moist clay with crazy crawling glass beads in the glaze- which i admitted that the odds of it breaking was high did not fly.

so i took the beads off

and decided to break them.

because i had no time to let them dry, eak, i decided to break them. I ran with the idea of turning something personal into something easier to distribute and hand out. Personal information is sold all of the time online, .. right?

this turned out to be a little dramatic.

and i broke my face. and that was that.

I wanted to make something beautiful. After making the “Self Absorbed” I thought it would be fun to play off words again, but in a more abstract idea.

So i decided to make a sculpture that would move beads around, this way and that- and would run into each other and pass each other- and would just be a network-thing, that would be a little chaotic.

so i went to the wood shop- and what do you know- it held wonderful treasures inside: this beautiful crown molding that would be the frame of the project

i was really glad that I had brought these beads earlier- it complimented the crown molding well- I almost bought these really chunky purple ones that were half the price of the pearl ones… that would of been horrible.

so the wood shop tech that was working, AJ, pretty much built the frame for me. He cut the angles of the wood to be angled so that it could make a frame.

but i painted the inside using some paint that was left in the studio, by the lovely amber johnson.

after the painted dried, i hammered nails into the interior

lots and lots of nails. i wished i could of hammered them down more- but these were the smallest nails we had, and i did not want to puncture through the board.

starting to look like a frame, yes? i put wood glue in seams of the corners and tried to hold it together… the wood did not take so kindly to the glue.

Aj then used the nail gun to hold the frame together.

this project would of been pretty bad with out him, thanks thank thanks

on the inside, i started weaving wires with sets of different sized pearl beads.

added a lot more wires and a lot more beads.

its such a kinetic sculpture that i made a video to show what it looks like in motion. pretty happy with how this turned out visually- but i understand its a little shaky on the conceptual front.

I REALLY WANT TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN. the hand being water proof was the problem of the first sculpture- so I thought, why not use a glove?

so i bought some cleaning gloves.

i wanted hand to hold the word- standards or worldview- so i thought i could mold the glove full of water

i used a glass for the back of the fingers- and a nail chiseler for the inside- i needed something that would let the fingers move- ice expands.

and i placed the bowl into the freezer.

when i took it out of the freezer- it was a hand- but i could tell that it wasn’t nearly as elegant as i wanted it to be.

but it was ice.

and when i tried to take the wrapper off, the fingers came off.

yeah its ugly. yeah its just a thumb. yeah i’m going to try again.

I want to put myself more into this project, but wasn’t sure how to do so. I like the idea of having something hidden on the inside- like secret thoughts or feelings- etc. So I decided to make a face mask, with my own face, and put glass beads on the inside so the outside would be rough and unnoticeable and the inside would be beautiful- and look kinda like a geode.

i started by rolling out some clay slabs.

and set up a little station to get things rolling.

and this was pretty straight forward- i used gravity and pressed clay to my face.

i used a needle tool to carve out holes to breath with. this sucked- i breathed in and the little bit that i carved went into my nose. yuck!

So, after being able to breath- i just smashed the clay on my face, molding the inside to my features.

from here, i used a hair dryer to harden the clay- the more moisture that is out of the clay, the stiffer and will be able to hold its form.

i did this for 20 minutes or so, for each one- and looked like a ghost.

from here i placed glass beads inside. when they are put through the glaze firing the beads melt and go crazy. its lovely.

i placed them outside to dry because i wanted to put them in the glaze firing which was happening the next day, skipping the bisque all together.

So the idea of making an ice sculpture sounds delightful doesn’t it? of course it does. So to work this into this project- I thought of the idea of having an ice hand holding the word “standards” or “worldview”  and take pictures of it melting.

To start with I knew I could use this mold- my friend made it for another project and it was just sitting lonely in the mold closet-

because it was plaster- I know that it will not hold water-it will sink into it.

SO i thought i could by pass this by just adding wax resit to it- in ceramics you have to add wax resit to the bottom of what ever you have that will touch the kiln in anyway so that the glaze will stop there and not run into the kiln boards. (its water proof)

so i brought the mold home.

i started using some clay to seal the edges, i’ve never used a mold before- but i hear that this is how its done

i wasn’t feeling so good with just the clay

so i added some tape

here is where it started to go wrong- as soon as i started adding water, you could tell immediately that the water was not going to stop- it just rushed out of it. epic fail.

the water just kept sinking.

NO good-

i took it outside to let it dry- the plaster had just soaked up all of the water. meh.

so i’ll try again.

After waiting a very long time to have an organic bisque burn in the studio, the time came to put my community bowl in.

with typical ceramics you make a piece put it through the bisque which is a long slow burning process, take it out and glaze your piece and then put it through the glaze firing which is a hotter and shorter burn phase.

To my delight, the community bowl turned out to be such a character.

the newspaper burned out completely- leaving just the porcelain behind, which was expected, but what was the surprise was the layering. because i applied porcelain to each piece individually, it created a flaky texture. Basically i created 100’s of little bowls making one giant bowl.

the edges and the sides shaped into this lovely organic feel.

the edges are so fragile that just by touching them wrong they will break off.

so needless to say i’m happy with this.

I turned the artificial new york times into a porcelain bowl, which reflects how fragile society is, as well as flaky- but at the same time made of quality.

I like playing off of words- so it was pretty natural coming to this conclusion of making a sculpture to fit in here that worked with the idea of being self absorbed.

step one- buy sponges.

from here i tryied to figure out how i wanted to write Self on the side of the sponges- I didn’t like the relationship between the lower L and the F on here

So i decided, on the other side, to just go plain and simple.

from here i just simply carved and cut the letters out

till it started to look like this-

with time, i made the letters go deeper.

from here, i put the sponges in the bowl and let the water to it thing

i wished the whole sponge would of been taken under with water- but that is not what sponges do.

eventually it began to shift.

until it became no more.