RISE highlights the emerging talent from the Fort Hays State University Graduate Program. This diverse group of makers exemplifies fine craft, celebrates traditional practice, and contributes to the field through concept and process driven work. RISE is hosted by The Red Lady Gallery in Kansas City's historic West Bottoms. This was a demonstration on how to build a coiled and slab constructed clay sedimentary specimen with artifacts emerging from revealed upper stratum.
Press molds are a super important part of my practice. To make a clay press mold, press an object into a wet slab of clay and then remove it. Bisque this slab of clay and then press wet clay into the bisqueware mold. You will then be able to pop out a molded piece of wet clay to build or embellish with.
Trace is a pseudoscientific investigation of potential artifacts, specimens, and fossils, of 21st century American culture. This series considers how these findings might be interpreted and valued in the future and what histories or narratives these artifacts might tell. When exploring museums of any kind I find myself lost in thought, imagining the world that these artifacts, specimens, or fossils existed in and curious of the authenticity of interpretation through categorizing collections. This series of work takes the familiar artifacts of our time and turns them into undefined foreign remnants for the future open to new interpretation and cultural appropriation. Archeological findings on land are found embedded in the earth, making clay a sensible construction material choice. Metal castings are also present because of the similarity between casting a metal object and the geological process of remineralization or replacement. Each artifact is imbedded in sediment that gives clues about what natural environment it may have existed in. Larger specimens have structural ruins imbedded in them that seem to be frozen in the moments before complete collapse. Crystals and organic growths representative of earth’s continual and evolving cycles decorate the surface of each sedimentary form. Art display is conceptually important in this series. Pieces are displayed on shipping crates, observation tables, metal specimen trays, or in sorted collections. The selected display device places a value and associations on these specimens.
These wall pieces are constructed from slabs and have slab structural supports built within them. The image of work in the kiln shows what these wall pieces look like fully constructed.
I working with majolica glazes this semester and have made several sample specimens. The pieces above are at a variety of stages- bisqued red earthenware, glazed, and fired.
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