Clay Day

Today I returned to my second-grade self to do some clay work. I was excited to get started because I took art classes all through high school, but didn't make time for art in college. It was fun to tour the pottery studio and the kilns - I had no idea we even had facilities like that on campus, or that PSU is known for having a good ceramics program. It's pretty awesome that students get to build and use those kilns.

After we toured the facilities and saw the 3D clay printer, we started making our own creations using the coil method. I decided to just have fun with it and not care how my pot turned out. What I found most interesting is that you can make pretty much anything using coils. When you're a kid, you usually just use coils to make pots, but Tom pointed out a lot of different pieces that used coils as a base.

Overall the clay experience fun and relaxing. In the future, it would be cool to do a lab with wheel thrown pottery because it's really challenging and probably new to most of the students in the class.

Here are my answers to the reflection questions:

What about your design worked well/didn’t work well?

I was pretty ambitious in trying to get the clay coil layers to widen and narrow significantly throughout the pot. This naturally causes some instability because the coils are only resting on a portion of the coils beneath them instead of being directly on top of each other. I also made relatively thick coils, which meant that each coil added significant weight to the structure and took away from its stability. If I did this again I would make thinner, more uniform coils and transition into protruding layers more gradually.

One part that did work really well was my smoothing process. I used the slip to smooth out the layers until it was no longer obvious that the pot was made from coils. It was fun to get my hands dirty and it made my pot look better!

Did you gravitate toward a particular shaping/making process? If so, why?

As I mentioned earlier, I used coils to build my pot. I chose to use coils because that is what I learned in school and Tom suggested we start by using coils. I also talked earlier about how versatile coils are in making any kind of clay structure, which I started to appreciate during this lab.

Was the making of your object informed by the tactile feedback of hand working?

Definitely, I changed my process a lot from start to finish. I got a lot better at making my coils from the beginning to the end, which led to gradual improvement moving up from the base of my pot. After I had been working for awhile, I went back to smooth over the spots I had done earlier.

Can you make connections between craft, design, industrial, and scientific applications of clay
and ceramic material?

My grandfather is an artist and he mostly does oil paintings, but he also has created a number of bowls that we use in our house. It's always been interesting to me that his art is both beautiful and functional - allowing us to cook and bake. Before exposure to his art, I saw things as either practical and useful or beautiful (not both). It's pretty amazing that clay can be used for so many different things and I have come to appreciate (through this class) that we can design things that are both beautiful and functional. I am really interested in industrial design (despite being an engineer), so it is awesome to learn about how to combine these aspects to create consumer products that are desirable and feasible.