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Wheel Throwing Video: Buttered Up - How to Make a Wheel Thrown and Altered Butter Dish on the Pottery Wheel March 19, 2010
In this video clip, Keith Phillips shows us how to make a thrown and altered classic American butter dish. It's a fun project involving both thrown and handbuilt components. As Keith explains, butter sizes vary depending on your location, but his idea can be adapted to whatever size you need. Watch the video!Read Comments (22)
Penn State University: From Ceramics Monthly’s MFA Factor March 18, 2010
The professors in the ceramic area at Penn State University believe that each student has their own unique way of expressing their thoughts and feelings in clay. As a result we are open to a wide spectrum of self expression: from mixed media installations to the student making utilitarian pots. In the end it’s the qualities and quality of the work that are most important.Read Comments (0)
Bowling Green State University: From Ceramics Monthly’s MFA Factor March 18, 2010
The MFA program at Bowling Green State University prepares students to become professional artists and educators. As graduate students explore their ideas, the faculty members serve as guides, helping them navigate the art-making process. Students are encouraged and challenged; through this process they learn to carefully consider their intentions and develop an honest dialog with their work. The small size of the ceramics graduate program fosters an intimate mentoring relationship. Graduates work closely with faculty members to develop a strong body of work while honing the professional skills needed to advance their careers.Read Comments (0)
New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University: From Ceramics Monthly’s MFA Factor March 18, 2010
The mission of the Division of Ceramic Art at Alfred is to educate ceramics artists at the undergraduate and graduate level to the limits of the imagination. At Alfred, the faculty believes in the critical development of concept and individual point of view, as well as establishing a solid foundation in materials, process—technology, equipment—and skill. A knowledge of art history, including ceramic art history and a national/international cultural awareness is considered important. The faculty welcome students from around the world and look forward to listening to them. Clearly, the students are the future of ceramic art.Read Comments (0)
Ohio University: From Ceramics Monthly’s MFA Factor March 18, 2010
The Ceramics area at Ohio University offers an inclusive environment where traditional and nontraditional forms of ceramic making are equally fostered, and emphasis is put on a conceptual awareness and rigor within the making process.Read Comments (0)
California College of the Arts: From Ceramics Monthly’s MFA Factor March 17, 2010
Rooted in a critically engaged artistic practice, the graduate program in fine arts at the California College of the Arts helps students to achieve a deeper understanding of their own ideas and practice while gaining greater awareness of the global context of contemporary art.Read Comments (0)
Scratching the Surface: The Terra Sigillata Clay Tile Paintings of Jenny Mendes March 17, 2010
Not even Jenny Mendes herself can explain the mystery of how her imagery makes it out of her subconscious and onto her clay tile paintings. But she can explain the technical details of scratching her drawings into moist clay and layering various colors of terra sigillata to create her rich illustrations. That's exactly what she does in today's post. Enjoy!Read Comments (15)
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville: From Ceramics Monthly’s MFA Factor March 16, 2010
The graduate program in ceramics at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville encompasses the diversity of approaches currently being explored in contemporary ceramics. Committed to fostering the evolution of ideas and techniques, and broadening the scope of possibilities within contemporary ceramics, the program also maintains a high standard of craftsmanship. A healthy balance of functional potters, vessel-makers and sculptors keeps the studio environment dynamic and engaging. Exploration in other studio areas as well as art history is required as a means to foster artistic growth across disciplines. A strong work ethic, attention to detail, artistic research and craftsmanship are required to successfully complete the graduate program. A positive attitude, which is conducive to working within a large studio community, is essential.Read Comments (0)
Louisiana State University: From Ceramics Monthly’s MFA Factor March 16, 2010
The ceramics faculty at Louisiana State University recognizes the importance of inventive personal statements and the experimentation and exploration of visual concepts. We emphasize the marriage of art and craft and try to avoid narrow vocational goals. Divisions between media are considered to have disappeared and the graduate-level student is expected to work as a maturing artist motivated by independent ideas. Our graduate students' interests vary from a strong functional pottery orientation to the concerns of sculpture and conceptual art.Read Comments (0)
University of Nebraska-Lincoln: From Ceramics Monthly’s MFA Factor March 16, 2010
The aim of the MFA program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln is to help each student find his or her voice as an artist. MFA candidates spend three years developing their thesis-the ideas, concepts, approaches and values that will shape their work, now and in the future. Students are strongly encouraged to take three full years to finish their degrees. This extra time is intended to be a wise and productive investment, resulting in MFA exhibitions that are truly professional.Read Comments (0)
University of California, Davis: From Ceramics Monthly’s MFA Factor March 16, 2010
The UC Davis Department of Art's MFA graduate program philosophy is to bring in students of the highest creative caliber and potential, and provide them with a rigorous program of independent research and sustained artistic development. The program recognizes that students are developing into individual emerging artists in the professional art world, as well as, in many instances, becoming art teachers and professors in public and private schools and colleges.Read Comments (0)
The Ohio State University: From Ceramics Monthly’s MFA Factor March 16, 2010
Established in 1926, The Ohio State University Ceramics program is one of the oldest in the country. The educational philosophy of the program, which operates inside the larger graduate program in The OSU Department of Art, encourages students to bridge the boundaries of both concept and material. The program promotes a cross fertilization of media and methods and places a high value on intellectual research.Read Comments (0)
A Neutral Vision: Po-Ching Fang’s Tea Sets March 15, 2010
Taiwanese potter Po-Ching Fang (pronounced Fong) explains midway through our interview that his vision of nature, like his vision of a cup, is of a world both constructed and organic, and in this combination one finds a universality understood by all.Read Comments (0)
How to Transform Your Clay Body into a Casting Slip March 15, 2010
Combine cast and handbuilt parts without the fear of different shrinkage rates. Paul Wandless demonstrates how to make a casting slip from your everyday clay body.Read Comments (14)
Handbuilding Video: How to Make a Mosaic-Patterned Bowl Using Loaves of Colored Clay March 12, 2010
In today's video, an excerpt from Pottery Decoration: Traditional Techniques, potter Tom Shafer demonstrates a version of the nerikomi technique. Nerikomi (often referred to as “neriage”) is a decorative process established in Japan that involves stacking colored clays and then slicing through the cross section to reveal a pattern, which can then be used as an applied decoration, or in this case, to build a form on a plaster mold. Watch the video!Read Comments (20)
The Sasukenei Smokeless Kiln: A Wood Kiln that Produces Little Smoke and Great Results March 10, 2010
What if you could get the results of firing in a traditional anagama kiln in a quick-firing, compact kiln that produces very little smoke? In today's post, an excerpt from Japanese Wood-Fired Ceramics, Masakazu Kusakabe and Mark Lancet explain the concept behind the Sasukenei Smokeless Kiln. Plus, we've thrown in a couple diagrams in case you'd like to build your own.Read Comments (60)
Kick Your Work Up a Notch: Announcing the Ceramics Monthly Master Class! March 8, 2010
Today's post is a sample from our new section Ceramics Monthly Master Class. Simon Levin explains the importance of critiquing your ceramic work, a skill that is often stressed at the college level, but is good to learn and practice at any stage of the game. Simon explains his "Suck Factor" method of gauging a piece's success and gives some sample critiques on his own work.Read Comments (16)
Wheel Throwing Video: How to Throw Teabowls Off the Hump on the Pottery Wheel March 5, 2010
Throwing off-the-hump is a very helpful technique if you are making a series of a form. You only have to center once so you can really get into a rhythm, which makes it easier to repeat the same size and shape. But as Jerry points out in today's video, it is also a fun exercise for experimenting with variations on a form. Watch the video!Read Comments (14)
Margaret Bohls: Slab Teapot March 4, 2010
Process is a primary source of inspiration for me. A sense of inventive play while folding, cutting, and assembling clay slabs provides a stream of new information with which to work. My soft slab work is made simply and assembled relatively quickly, giving it a soft, casual simplicity. For me, each pot is like a three-dimensional gesture drawing. Each form is defined by the edges of the slabs from which it was created. These edges or lines create a drawing in space that defines each form.Read Comments (0)
The Perfect Cure for Cabin Fever: A Potter Shares a Cool Technique for Making Texture Stamps with Natural Objects March 3, 2010
Woodstock, New York, ceramic artist Meg Oliver make simple plaster texture stamps out of found objects. To make the stamps she uses to create texture on her pottery, Meg usually takes a nice walk in the woods and picks up objects that will make interesting marks in clay . Then, she uses pinch pots and plaster to transform them into fun, free-form stamps. I thought this would be a great project for spring!Read Comments (12)
