Drinking coffee and listening to RHCP

 So here are the pieces I have worked on the past three weeks.  The two tall pieces (approx 24") are coil built from a white b-mix clay.  On them, I carved the image and inlaid slip (b-mix slip with cobalt carbonate). Then I sanded away the excess slip, so it only remained in the carved lines.  I bisqued fired the pieces, and then using a black underglaze pencil, I colored in certain areas, reminiscing about foundations drawing classes with Jeremiah, and trying to sharpen my pencil with a pocket knife. Feels wholesome to draw again. I am not one to keep a sketchbook, because I just end up drawing a bunch of cartoon cats.  On the slender pot I think I am going to use some clear glaze in vertical bands for the carved area only. I would like to see what the "sky" would look like left plain clay or flocked white/grayish. I also would like to mother of pearl luster those bands of glaze. I have been thinking of seasons/winter/snow because I have never explored that idea of frozen, dormant, sleep. In my previous work I have only touched upon green, summer, alive.  At least that it what I have been mulling over.  


The imagery I am working with for these two pieces are based off of my initial drive out here to Corning.  You are surrounded by fields and the occasional farmhouse and lots of gentle hills that lull you to sleep.  I have done a lot of driving in Iowa and it is sort of the only time I really have to myself. Not driving to work, but on my long drives to the studio in Dubuque and out here to Corning.  So it is precious and peaceful in a way and this cliche image of an endless road is calming and fascinating in a strange way where you think you might drive off the edge of the earth but never do. 

Artist Residency @ Corning Fine Arts

Corning Center For the Fine Arts

         I arrived in Corning, IA on Monday November 5th.  I am four hours west of Davenport, so I am pretty close to Omaha, Nebraska. This is the tiniest town I have ever been too, and everyone is friendly so far.  I think I will be very happy here because it is alot less hectic than Davenport. I quit my job to come here for three months and be a Resident Artist at the Corning Center for the Fine Arts.  It is a small art center with a rather large gallery, and a small pottery studio.  There is a clay room with a wedging table, clay sink, and work table.  In the adjacent room are 5 electric wheels and a Skutt programmable kiln.
      I am also the December artist in the gallery, so I will be putting up a show and hosting an opening reception starting the 2nd Saturday in December.

Why I chose Corning to do a Residency:

+A non intimidating environment for emerging artists, I didn't feel the pressure to compete
+there are two apartments aboive the art center, for the resident artist ( small fee) fully furnished
+I like the flexiibly of being able to choose 3 months, because I had enough finances to provide for three months of living, so I am able dedicate myself 100% to the artwork.

        For the past 2 years I have been sculpting Iowa, for the past month or so I have had the strong desire to draw and since I have been away from the studio for a few months that itch to make was driving me insane.  The drive from davenport to iowa took me about 4 hours, and the more you drive the more rural it becomes.  Snapping some cell phone pictures while I was driving, I was struck with the thought of building large amphoras and historical vase shapes and drawing these images of a road and the surroundings.

Flocked and glittered Christmas Ornaments

 I have two versions so far, one is heavily carved the other lightly scrached with a needles tool.  the clay is a cone 6-10 b-mix, I am going to bsique fire them and then use undergalze pencils before applying a clear glaze to certain sections and maybe a little bit of colored glaze.  Then finally luster them.  I bought lusters right after graduation and never had the opportunity to use them at Mississippi Mud Studios. I have a large jar of mother of pearl luster and  the smallest vile of gold.  I am thinking about getting some silver luster as well.
I have also started taking my mountain form and opening it up as a bottle and drawing my recent sculptures on them.  This is a brown stoneware with a white slip painted on and then carved through.

more to come i promise.

hollie

Summatime 2012

So it is hot out because it is summer and life goes on in Hollie world.  Working like mad and cant wait to get out of Davenport, but only 3 months till my residency.  Thank God. 

 I was accepted to a few shows this summer, the 2nd Annual Workhouse Clay National at the Lorton Arts  and So Tiny!  An Exhibition of Small Works in 3-D at the Baum Gallery of Fine Art at the University of Central Arkansas.  I also helped out at a wood fire in Galena, IL with a few people from the studio and it was awesome. 

The deadline for the Hartford Art School Alumni show is coming up so hopefully I will get to snap some photos of new work and apply.  Lots to finish and photograph so i can update the website.

   
Will post kewl photos from the wood fire soonish.

okayzz buh bye,  

hollie xoxoxo

Spring 2012

Hello interwebz...

Tomorrow I am going to Peoria, IL to pick up my piece that was in Central Times Ceramics at Bradley University.  I went to the opening reception and heard Delores Fortuna's lecture, which was refreshing.  I was very pleased with the juror's selection, I most enjoyed the fact that it was work by people I have never heard of and the talent was superb  and creative.

I missed NCECA this year which was in Seatte, WA and wish I could have gone, because it is always so stimulating to be surrounded  by beautiful pots and the company of potters, but maybe next year or the after I will bea ble to attend.  I just entered a few pieces in Across the Divide, a national juried show in Arizona, so I should here the results of that in a few weeks, no fingers crossed because I dont even care anymore about them.  It is like playing the lotto.

I am realizing that my time here in Iowa is winding down.   Zachary will be finished school next February and is going to India for clinic abroad for two weeks this summer.  I will be attending a residency this winter, at the Corning Center for the Fine Arts. It is a three month long residency from November to January.  They have a small ceramics studio and a programmable kiln as well as gallery space. I will be staying in a furnished apartment  above the studio that they rent to resident artists.  I am pretty pumped for this, I have not worked full time in a studio since Hartford.  I will also be glad to not have to go to a job for three months hellzzz yea.

I have been working at Mississippi Mud, my studio up in Dubuque once a week, now that I have my car back.  I have a few things in progress.  I will be having a solo show at Corning Fine Arts this December so I am making some pieces for that right now and kind of getting nervous already cause i would ideally like to have about 20 pieces and I have about 4.  

click it!
Corning Center for the Fine Arts 

ok interwebz g2g ttyl

We used to be number 10, now we permanent number 1

So January flew by and life in Davenpoop has not been bad at all.  I was accepted into the 3rd Biennial Central Times Ceramics Exhibition at Bradley University in Peoria, IL.  Zach and I dropped off my piece there on Sat, Jan 28th.  The opening reception is Thursday March 1, so I will get some pictures from that once it gets here.
 click here to view piece in 3rd biennial central times ceramics

I am tired of entering shows and I need to get back into some wet clay work.  I wish I was going to NCECA this year, but I am sure it will be in Seattle some time in the distant future. Texas sounds cool for 2013 but we are probably moving around that time so who can say what is really going to happen then. 

I will soon have my new used car in a short 4 weeks, my mom is driving that up to me from Pennsylvania.  Super pumped about that, cant wait to get back to Dubuque and into a REAL studio, not my coffee table and sitting on the ottoman.  Although, that has proved more productive than I thought. 

I guess I am thinking that I will probably apply to graduate school for the year of 2015, i think a good 5 years and I will be at a good standpoint artistically, emotionally and financially.  I think that is definitley doable, and will give me plenty of breathing time, between my undergrad body of work and what my work will become between then and now. I also do not want to move every other year, it is comforting to stay in one place for more than two years. 

I dont know where we are going when Zach graduates, but I have faith that good things are to come, and I am enjoying exploring the regions of America. just need to tackle the south, southwest, and west.
 

hollie

Fall/Winter 2011

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

So I haven't been to the studio in like 3 or 4 months, because I crashed my car at the end of August. But I have had a lot of projects to finish, from the woodfire in April to the soda fire in September.  I have flocked several of these pieces and finished a few.  I have applied to 3 shows in November and December, so I have been busy getting things together, photographing pieces, updating my website and getting my sh*t together.  It is nerve wracking trying to find time to do everything, but ya gotta wanna. good wisdom from zach and the chiro philosophy.  A good reason to enter a bunch of shows with your most recent work, is that you force yourself to put the finishing touches on a piece, set up your faux photo studio in your living room and start struggling with your stupid tripod and start snapping away while you are tripping over your cat that thinks we are playing some kind of game.  But the number one thing I love about the process, is that once you have a good photo,  no one has to know that you were sweating through the entire process in a tiny 400 sq ft apt in your pajamas while watching NCIS. :)

I have entered Central Times Ceramics, the 4th Biennial Concordia Continental Ceramics Competition, and Clay3.  the first and third are regional juried exhbitions, and the middle one is for the entire north america and carribean.  i actually think the latter entry got lost in the mail, because my check hasn't been cashed and I never heard anymore about it.  oh well, I saved $25 lol.

I made a trip to Mississippi Mud Studio and picked up abot 80 lbs of stoneware, to start some new clay work.  My mom got me a shimpo banding wheel for my bithday, which can hold like 200lbs of clay or something..  its pretty cool I can stand on it and spin myself around.

I have three or four more shows to enter this January and February, which are the Clay IV Kirkland Art Center Ceramic Biennial, the 4th contemporary Clay Biennial 2012, the 19th San Angelo National Ceramics Competition, and Feats of Clay.

I have about three pieces to photograph next week, and also been trying to catch up on Ceramics Art and Perception and Ceramics Monthly as well as finish up The History of American Ceramics.  I guess i am trying to prepare to apply to grad school in 2 or 3 years, so I am trying to not fail at this DIY clay approach.

May your New Year be more creative than the last!

Hollie