Progress 2/8/2012

2/8/2012

slumper!

Today I was less productive than I'd hoped.  I was pretty burned out and had a hell day at work.  It was the kind of day where someone emailed me the same question forty times  (31 for reals) and I answered the same way every time explaining that the thing she wanted doesn't exist and she just couldn't understand that sometimes you can't fucking get what you want.  Ahhh!  This is what happens when parents don't tell their children no.  Tangent over.  I did get the torso up to the neck area completed but working on the torso was no fun because though I know not to build it too high because of slumping, I kept building it too high because I was impatient and of course it slumped.  I attached one arm to the torso but that was too wet as well and caused additional slumping.  I had to wrap it and put it away because I was too frustrated.  


I made socks on top of the shoes and an unsuccessful leg that looked like the girl had polio.  I figured out that you have to wrap the clay around a cardboard tube and let it harden over night before you start to work it. 


Though no one has every accused me of being a clean freak, cleaning up after each thing you work on is really important.  If you don't clean the floor, you're stepping on crunchy clay and there are trash bags everywhere. If you don't clean your tools then you're grabbing tools that have hardened clay nuggets stuck to them that will destroy the details and get into your wet clay.  I dust the shelves, sweep the floor, wipe down the counters, and do a quick wet mop every time I switch to a new thing.  I'm probably doing this five times a session.


The studio feels like home now but it needs to be purged of a bunch of crap that we don't really use.  When I make projects of whatever kind (sewing, ceramics, painting, jewelry, photography, printmaking, booking making, etc...) I tend to buy way too many supplies so I don't run out in the middle of the project.  My dad is the guy who has pallets of diet coke in his basement so he doesn't run out so I guess that's where I get it.  The supplies have built up over the years and I have a surplus of fabric/fauxfur/plea-leather/ink/canvases....  I have a Bissel 67 enlarger in the corner of the studio taking up a ton of room that hasn't been used for 8 years.  After this week I'm going to figure out what we will realistically use and give the rest to Wishcraft (awesome kid's art studio!) and sell the enlarger.  


tomorrow will be a better day