Sculpture: Tile

(March 2006)
I thought I'd post a new one for a change. This sculpture is different from the rest in that it was sculpted in a firing clay. This means to get the final piece it just needs to be kiln fired, instead of the long involved casting process with the other pieces I've done.

I sculpting it during the last class of the Winter session. It went off the drying room where it will be taken to the kiln for firing. So I eagerly await the start of the Spring session so I can see how it turns out.

There is a multi-step firing process involved. The first firing I believe is called a bisk firing. After this firing the piece will come back very white in colour. It can be left in this state, or it can be high fired. High firing will give the piece a more stone like look. More earthy yellow in tone. It will also pick up deposits of iron which cast an interesting shadow over the piece. The iron comes from the kiln it's self. The temperature is high enough that small amounts of it vapourise and then condense in on the piece.

Another thing you can do before the high firing is add surface finishes. I'm not sure what all the options are, but I've seen some of thenm, and you can get some interesting effects.

So an obvious question is, why don't we use a firing clay all the time? Well there are several reasons I can think of. The clay is a lot more expensive to work with and it more difficult to work with. It costs more to get, and it's harder to maintain. It must be kept clean of contaminants or it could explode during firing. It's also harder to work with. The grain of the clay is much larger, so it's harder to get detail into it. It dries faster, and doesn't soften up again easily. Finally you need to be very careful how put it together. Creating an air pocket in the clay could cause the piece to explode when fired.

Plus there's the poetry class, which makes full use of the kiln so there's rarely an opportunity for additional works to get fired. So it was a bit of a privilege to get to work with this clay and I fully enjoyed it.

The moment of truth will come in the next few weeks. Did I make any mistakes creating it that might cause it to come apart or even explode in the kiln. I worked with it a lot longer then I should have and it was getting pretty dry by the end. It's hard to add new clay when the old clay is almost dry. So it could turn out that these pictures are all I have of 6 classes worth of work.

Unlike all my other pieces that I've just decided to squish back into the bin rather then cast, the decision is not mine whether it survives. It could return to class this week and be given a hand full of rubble.

Sculpture: Roboman

(May 2004)
This is about the mid point of the all male model trend. I believe I had just completed work on casting Man 2. This was the last three week pose of the school year. As I recall I didn't have much creative energy left. Sometime this leads to trying different things. This is a good example of that happening.

Because the school year was coming to an end there was no way to preserve this piece. Well not easily at anyway. So knowing it's just going to get squished gives you a little more freedom to just play with it. It also gives you little incentive to put effort into it. So the combination of those two factors resulted in this part robot man.

Had I had more time or interest in it I probably would have taken it to the half and half stage. I think it's an interesting idea. I might try it again sometime. I've like the cyborg / humanoid robot concept. It might be fun to carry that through to a completed piece.

Sculpture: Quick Reclining

(January 2004)

Don't remember much about this one. I know I did it in one class, 3 hours. Compared to work I've done in the past, getting this far would have taken 3 classes. I'm still not very fast compared to some others I've seen though.

Condo: Almost Ready

My new condo is almost ready. I take possession April 7. Here are a few pictures of the building from about month ago. The only visible difference from today is they've taken the construction elevators off the building.

The close up picture at the bottom is my actual balcony and bedroom window.

Work: Jeff's Last Day

Jeff is a friend and coworker. We've worked together on projects on and off over the last 7 years I've been at the company, he's been there for 10.

Tomorrow is his last day. For most people I'm very sad when they leave. I know there is a good chance I may never see them again, or at least very rarely. Jeff has decided to go to China to learn mandarin. So while I don't expect I'll never see him again, it's not like he's going to be around.

Jeff hasn't enjoyed working at the company since the day I met him, my first day in the office. I think one of the first things he said was "I've got to get out of here." While I don't expect this is entirely true, it is mostly true. He is a very loyal and responsible person. He very carefully timed his departure to be at the end of a project cycle.

The difference with Jeff's departure over other people's departures is I'm very happy. When other people have left, they've basically gone to do the same job somewhere else. Jeff has not only quit a job he hasn't enjoyed, he's decided to pursue something he's talked about doing for a few years now.

It's an odd felling for me. I'm glad to see him go. And this feeling of happiness at his departure has overridden any feelings that I'll miss him.

All the best in China Jeff. I suspect I will miss you at some point, but right now I'm just glad to see you go.

Neill-Wycik, Giving Notice

September 1988 was the first time I moved into Neill-Wycik Co-operative Collage Inc., as a place to stay while attending Ryerson. In November 1992 I moved from the student multi-units into a one bedroom apartment.

Today, after 17 year and 7 months in the building and 13 years and 4 months in my apartment, I am giving notice.

It's a very odd feeling knowing I'll no longer be living here in just a couple of months. Somedays I'm very excited about moving to my condo, other days I notice all the things I'll miss about this place. Overall I can't wait to get into my new place.

Sculpture: Man 2

(November 2003)
Look Familiar? This is the second male standing pose I've done, and it looks a lot like the first one. Same model too, I think. It's rather stylized. The lines of the body are very exaggerated.

This one has a funny story, and it explains a bit of a problem with the piece. When the time with the model had finished it wasn't this far along. Much of the smoothing and accentuating of the lines I did in the next class. This meant I no longer had the model as a reference. Anyway I liked it enough that I wanted to keep it. I'd never cast a male figure before, so I figured it was about time. Casting from a standing armature posed some interesting technical challenges, and I decided to try casting it in cement. All my other pieces I've cast in Densite. But first I needed to finish cleaning up the piece.

The one thing I hadn't done when the model was there, was give him a penis. This brought about a big debate. Did the absence of a penis stand out such that it distracted from the rest of the piece. I kind of thought it did, so I wanted to add it. But I didn't want it to overwhelm the piece. Penises are hard this way.

So, I couldn' t use the model as reference, I didn't want a penis that stood out, and I really didn't want to get into all the details and other bits. It wasn't what I was going for, I just wanted enough that people wouldn't say, where is it. So I started with the little bit you see in these pictures.

The next class I had setup to do some final cleanup before going down to the other end of the class to start casting. A few women in the class wondered by, pointed and said, it's too small, it needs to be bigger. I wasn't really sure what to think, so I made it a little bigger.

Later another women was looking it over. She liked it a lot, but thought the penis was too small. So I made it bigger.

Later the original group came wondering back. They really liked how I had cleaned it up and smoothed it all out, but still said I should make it bigger.

So from this experience I learned, that it's never big enough, you just got to work with what you've got. But I also made it a little bigger.

Later I will post pictures of the completed casting. I still haven't got around to making a stand for it. I'd like to do that this summer. Then he and his small penis can stand out on my balcony for all to see.