The Practice of Practicum

Sarah Chenoweth Davis - ceramist, urbanist. This blog tracks a research pathway leading me toward my capstone paper and exhibition of my Practicum project for the MFA in Applied Craft and Design from the Oregon College of Art and Craft and Pacific Northwest College of Art.

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Rejuvenation

Revival / Resurgence / Reawakening / Revitalization nice view, huh? I’ve had a surge of familiar energy as of late. Familiar but a little different. It’s a kind of urgency coupled with exhilaration. I’m about 18 months out of grad school…been plugging along, livin’ the life, as they say…my life revolves around clay, craft, art & design. I’m employed as a production assistant in a small ceramic…

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For the past 2 years this funny little space has been my second home, one of dozens in the creative shanty town of @appliedcraftanddesign . I'm almost all moved out now, everything in storage until August, when I can move into another, albeit smaller, hive of making.

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Swedish wool yarn & other treasures on the cheap...happening now at what will soon be my former studio: art students' garage sale, NE 10th & Glisan.

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Going through old sketchbooks, downsizing before I move out of my grad studio. 2006

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Low view of my Practicum exhibition project piece, Everything Falls Apart But Nothing Ever Does.

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When I turned in my undergraduate thesis I got a Tootsie Roll. Today, during the ceremony to receive my MFA, I got a #Moonstruck raspberry truffle. #movinupintheworld

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On my way to turn this baby in! MFA, here I come... #mfatimes #readyfortherealworld #graduate @appliedcraftanddesign

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MIXED MESSAGES

2014 MFA Practicum Exhibition

Applied Craft + Design

OCAC | PNCA

Operating between campuses and across disciplines, inspired by the freedom of the studio and the urgency of everyday life, drawing from the expertise of the collective and tactile knowledge of material in hand; this is Applied Craft + Design. Mixed Messages is the culmination of two-years of learning boldly through making. Featuring the work of 17 recent graduates, this exhibition is representative of the studio from which it came: a collective site of boundless experimentation where art, craft, and design converge to forge new vocabularies that reimagine the material landscape of everyday life.

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Opening Reception: May 24th 6pm-9pm

Open Daily from 1pm-5pm (except sundays)

Open By Appointment (outside of those hours)

Closing Reception First Friday June 6th 6pm-8pm 

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This is the end, this is the reason, this is the climax of all this practicing practicum...our exit show!

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Coincidentally, this is what my gut feels like...11 days to go until our practicum exhibition.

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The Great Install begins now. Huge thanks to @magic_chr1st1an for the custom table!!!! #mfatimes @mixedmessagesacd @appliedcraftanddesign

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Ruminating on the next move, the next piece...arranging and rearranging.

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Bare bones Raw materials

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Petrified

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I've not been given a choice in the matter: I WILL take a break.  Or just type one-handed.

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Seize the Flower in the Mirror, 2013, Jae Won Lee; hand-built colored porcelain, wooden case, and wooden table

Tangled Up in You, 2014, Beth Cavener and Allesandro Gallo

A couple of weeks ago I attended "the big ceramics conference," which we all just call by the name of the organization which produces it, the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA: "en-seek'-a"). It had been a long, long while since I'd been around so much ceramic art and ceramic geekiness. This year's conference took place in Milwaukee, WI and included not only the organized programming at the convention center, but also over 80 exhibitions throughout the region. I only had enough time to get but a taste of everything over the course of four hectic days.

One of the first excursions I made was to the Milwaukee Art Museum (a must-see of architecture) to view the conference show, Flow. It was smaller than I expected, but the magnitude of the work was surprisingly significant. Despite the accessibility afforded by digital technology to nearly every corner of the ceramics community, I felt, as I toured this show, as though I've been living in a cave.  A cave with a rabbit-ear antennaed TV, maybe...not totally cut off from civilization. I know intellectually that clay is capable of doing just about anything, that it can be sweet-talked into representing just about anything, but, in my case, seeing the proof of it stimulated something deeper and more complicated than inspiration to make my dreams come true. I came back from Milwaukee haunted by two pieces in particular, those by Beth Cavener/Allesandro Gallo and Jae Won Lee.

Even after all this time, it's still difficult for me to put into words the impact Tangled Up in You continues to have on me. I think it's the horizon I'll chase for years to come. This piece may end up being the metric for my own sculptural and expressive pursuits. I have seen Cavener's work many, many times before (this collaboration was a special thing; Gallo did the hand-painted tattoo design on the snake) and have felt a profound poignancy in the anthropomorphic yet oh-so realistic gaze of her animals. Her goats, rabbits and foxes (among others) are often placed in positions of vulnerability or submission, a tactic which, in effect, refuses to allow the viewer to simply be a voyeur. Her animals confront you, even in their submissiveness, to recognize your own weakness, aggression, passion ,etc. Tangled does this in spades. True, it's more of a spectacle piece than others (it was made for a spectacular occasion to hang from some pretty spectacular architecture), but the audacity works. But for me, this piece seems to be represent a great creative pursuit, a long arduous journey of years of refinement of technical, thematic, and conceptual strategies...a pursuit that I feel I have just embarked upon. As we get closer and closer to our Practicum exhibition, and as the deadline for my research paper and oral defense looms nearer, the personal truth of my work becomes more clear. The project does exist as a project, but I've begun to identify and articulate the persistent undercurrents which may propel my creative research and expressive undertakings for years and years to come

Jae Won Lee's work provoked something a little more specific and immediate. It made me re-examine the object of inspiration and subject of my practicum project, the clay tape. This was not the only work I saw during the conference which used super thin clay elements, very tape-like in dimension and effect. When I walked up to this piece I had already been hearing the voices asking me why the tape is appropriate to my technical goals, but this work also embodied the same ephemeral nature and fragility I'd been seeing in my work with the clay tape. Why, then, should I continue to work with this tape, this pain in the butt glue-based super-duper fragile how-the-heck-am-I-going-to-even-store-this? material??

What does the tape do that regular clay can't do? Is that why I'm working with it? As JP has asked me countless times, what is it about the work I've done that actually EXCITES me?