INSTALLATION PHOTOS

Artist statement: 

The core ideas behind my work revolve around using art to convey science, and that science and art can learn from each other. They employ similar research and problem solving techniques, and I’m communicating these ideas by bringing in my own physics research. This lets the audience experience part of my process and hopefully get a sense of what it is like to take part in research. I have chosen to work with ceramics because it overlaps with my physics interests. In the physics department, most of my research is about glass, and the glazes used on ceramics are glass. This allows me to combine my physics and art research together in my senior show.

The parabolas and constellation pieces are sharing the idea of using art to show and explain science. The bowls with glass melted on the bottom relate my own research in glass to my work in ceramics. Because I believe that the method of research in both art and science is similar, it was important for me to include a look into the processes of both. That was the inspiration for the images on the tiles, transparencies, and whiteboard, which are notes about planning my senior show or actual images from my glass research notebook.

Almost all of my pieces start on the pottery wheel, and the clay body I use for throwing is called white stoneware. The size of the clay that I wedge usually dictates how large one piece will be, which is typically slightly larger than two fists. The majority of my throwing technique is standard, however my parabolas are thrown “upside down.” The center hole extends through the clay, making the opening at the bottom, and then I close the shape at the top. The tiles I use are already pre-made, which means I just have to glaze them, apply the decals, and fire them one last time. All of my glazes are cone 6 glazes, which allows me to fire them in the smaller electric kilns. The parabolas are done after that stage, however I need to fire the constellation and glass pieces one more time for the luster to become metallic and for the glass to re-melt. The process of glass making is very similar to glaze making; I mix all the raw materials for the glass in a crucible and then heat it in a furnace. After the glass becomes molten, I pour it out and smash it between two metal plates, allowing the liquid to cool quickly enough to form a glass. Some of my handwritten pages from my glass research notebook have also been included with my work to add more context to the decals, which show actual data I have taken during my studies. I hope that these things supplement my thrown work and that the viewer gets to see the process of not just art making but also research.