Day five: Afternoon presentations

After lunch (and giving into the fifth consecutive day of Panera cookie consumption), the final aTi presentations began. Each class was given about 20-30 minutes to showcase the work they completed within the week. Much like last year, it was remarkable to see the progress that people made over the course of five days.

The oil painting class had an array of work which they displayed. Some pieces were clearly done by "seasoned" artists (Chris' portrait was phenomenal-- the subject's eyes were mesmerizing), but the pieces done by less experience artists were also beautiful too. The thing that I like about aTi is how the program is so welcoming to teachers of all different levels and disciplines. I spoke to one woman who had never done oil painting in her life. With the guidance of teacher Kit Sailor, this woman was able to create lovely, proportionate paintings; most of her paintings featured lemons and I absolutely loved them!

The songwriting class fascinated me, most likely because songwriting elements (similes, metaphors, symbolism, repetition, rhyme) also appear in my coursework. There was variety in terms of the songs that participants composed. One student created a song with Miles Davis' music in the background; it reminded me of spoken word poetry. Another student created a happy children's song about summer. Another participant wrote a haunting song with the chorus: "Fireflies in your eyes..."

The students in Printmaking and Book Arts produced equally impressive pieces. Nowadays, we buy so many items that are mass-produced; people forget about the work that goes into something as seemingly "simple" as a notebook or journal. Likewise, in our All Things Clay class, Deborah spoke about mass productive versus handcrafted, individual pieces.

When aTi participants came into our classroom, we each demonstrated a task for viewers. I demonstrated how to roll out a slab and flatten it on the slab board. It's a task that seems easy enough, but when you actually try it (like most other activities in life), it is harder than it originally seemed.

Posted below are some of the photos from our All Things Clay showcase. We arranged all of our pieces by color, instead of arranging our pieces at individual tables. I liked that we displayed all of our pieces together because it further evoked the feel of us working together as a class.

Below are photos from our All Things Clay showcase. Photos 1-4 were taken by Jenifer Simon; the rest were taken by me.

These are some students' bisque pieces. I love the detail that some of the pieces have.  

These are the tiles that we made. We used butcher's wax (clear) and shoe polish (brown) to increase the prominence of the leaves' veins. The substances were applied over the leaf indentations and then were quickly removed. 

"They like us. They really like us!" 

Most of these pieces feature a glaze called "rainbow burst"--how fun! My pitcher is second from the left. With the rainbow speckles, it looks "okay." It definitely could be classified as kitsch and I have no problem with that classification :) 

My mug!!!! I love how the colors came out so vividly. I also love the gigantic size of this mug. I haven't figured it out yet, but it's at least 2 cups of coffee! There are some spots, however, where I could have applied more glaze. This is a lesson learned for next time: 2-3 applications of glaze MEANS 2-3 applications of glaze:)

These are my tiles with the butcher's wax applied and then removed.

These are some of our other final pieces (most of them are Raku pieces). 

Here are more of our pieces on display. Sarah spent so much time creating the skull piece; I'm glad it came out so beautifully. Some of the mugs and other pieces had a drip-like glaze. I like the effect of the gray and green merging together. 

This is Tracey's piece. She did not have the chance to use glazes on it, but instead used pastels and a black paint for the indentations. It's lovely!