Atelier ceramique

Most ceramics studios in Geneva are quite small. Space is at a premium. Studios morph into galleries when necessary. Work space becomes display space becomes wine and cheese serving space. Usually, at the studios I've worked, people are warned about eating and drinking in the studio - too dangerous to do near such toxic substances. The shortage of space has in Geneva forces a level of cleanliness and order the likes of which I have never seen before. These studios are beautiful! Amazing!

These photos are from the studio/gallery of Renee Duc. I have never seen such beautiful containers for raw materials! It puts all of our trash cans and yogurt containers to shame! (Not to mention my buckets that still have labels and tell-tale odors from their original contents: peeled hard-boiled eggs and pickled herring. Mmmm.)

Almost Over!!!

The second half of my trip has just flown by! It's amazing how much time it takes to create a body of work in ceramics - much consideration has to be given to the timing of each stage - working with wet clay, leather hard clay, drying, adding slips and underglazes, firing, glazing, and firing again. I will begin my second firing tomorrow. The kiln I am using is somewhat different from what I'm used to, so it is a bit nerve-wracking.

The picture below is of all of my work before it went into the kiln the first time. As you can see, I can't seem to get away from tiny.


The picture below is of Laurin Schaub. He joined me in the studio starting September 17 and will be a resident at the Bruckner Foundation for three months. In this photo he's in the process of finishing a plaster mold. It is composed of several pieces, the largest of which is still somewhat wet in the picture. He's actually trimming the mold itself here. It made quite a mess, but the molds are beautiful when they are done. (I was glad to be done working with wet clay by the time he started doing this. The plaster could have ruined my work!)

Laurin is going to be making a serious of tuned singing bowls. I'm sorry that I won't be around to see them finished. I expect them to be pretty wonderful.


As a part of the ceramics biennial which is going on in Carouge right now, Sang Woo Kim gave a demonstration of his handbuilding process. He creates HUGE earthenware vessels using slabs. He builds with the slabs and pounds out the shape with wooden paddles while turning it on his wheel. At the very top he uses a bit of water to throw a finished lip. He used about 150 pounds of clay to create the piece below. Finished, it was about 4 feet tall and about 5 feet across at the widest point! He did it in about 2 hours. How could he do it so fast without it collapsing? The trick is the small black bucket you can see just inside the lip. It was hanging from the ceiling and was filled with hot coals. It dried the piece out a bit as he went, making it stronger! Apparently this is common practice in Korea. Smart.



Here is Sang Woo Kim with a smaller finished piece.

La Jeune Génération

I ended the last blog post with, "My hand hurts". When the pain left, the numbness set in. Now the only remaining numbness is in the tip of my right ring finger. Soon enough, I will end the hand-assault that is necessary to create all these tiny little peaked dots. I have at least one and a half more small pieces that need the treatment.

I think it's worth it. I'm really into the result.


This past weekend, my mom and I went to the Musee Ariana, a museum dedicated entirely to "kilncraft" - ceramics and glass. They currently have an exhibition on view called "Swiss Ceramics 1959-2009 : The New Generation". In addition to the "Pacours Ceramique Carougeois" biennial, there are several exhibitions circulating the country celebrating 50 years of contemporary Swiss ceramics. This exhibition is a part of that celebration.


The pieces below are:

- Marianne Eggimann (1980) Unglück, 2007
- Maude Schneider* (1980) Rainbow, 2008
- Laure Gonthier (1983) Black hiatus, 2007-2008
- Maurizio Ferrari (1970) Silhouettes, 2008



*the piece I had previously attributed to Maude Schneider was not hers. What canI say...French is not my language.

Yesterday I trudged down to the river for driftwood and stones

I'm beginning have a daily routine, which is lovely. After a short morning jog and breakfast, I walk the mile to the studio. I walk past the many hospital buildings, past Masion Ronald McDonald, over the river, past the old Jewish cemetery, and on to the studio. I go back to the apartment for a late lunch each day and then return to the studio for the afternoon and early evening.

I have spent my time focused on a few different ideas, one of which I'm showing you here. The image below is six pieces I've been working on for a few days. Each starts are two separate pinch-pots to which I have added pieces internally, painted, sculpted, and connected together to create a whole. At this point the interior is as done as it will be until it is fired. The exterior still needs work.

The images below are of pieces in which I've worked on the exterior a bit more. These have very small lines that cover the entire thing. Once they dry out a bit more I will airbrush slip onto the outside. The second image here is one piece atop a stone I collected from the river.

This is another exterior treatment in process. It is innumerable tiny points created with a thick slip in a syringe-type bottle. This piece, which is upside-down with the hole on the bottom, will eventually be entirely covered so hopefully it'll look a bit less like a toupee.

My hand hurts.

Connections

It has been a great couple of days! On Saturday, Charlie, my mom, and I walked to a small coffee shop to meet with a ceramicist named Beatrice Deschenaux (her work is above). She then took me to her studio, showed me her artwork, and looked over photographs of my art. She was wonderfully helpful - offered to take me around and introduce me to people during the events of the coming weeks, is firing a few tests for me right away, and offered her studio as a place for me to come work in the future (at no cost!)... it was really beyond anything I could have imagined!

Today we ventured beyond the city to go to a ceramics gallery run by an artist named Jose Campo. We stopped in the town of Nyon, Switzerland on the way. It is a beautiful old city right on Lake Geneva with a chateau turned museum in the middle! The pictures below are taken from the courtyard outside Le chateau de Nyon.


A small exhibition of contemporary ceramics was on view. The some of the work was by Maude Schneider, one of the two women who runs the Bruckner Foundation.

We then continued on to Jose Campo's home/gallery (home above, gallery below) in the hills outside Lausanne, Switzerland. We first saw an exhibition there in June, 2008 and were happy to be back to see another beautiful show. After a long translated conversation (thanks Charlie), and a look over some photographs, I am happy to know that Jose will be stopping by my temporary studio towards the end of the month to check out my work! He does not usually show the work of American artists, but here's to hoping!

Studio

Here are a few photographs of the studio:


Here is the front entrance. Once you walk in there are a few different spaces (a gallery, kilns, classroom, studio) in a horseshoe layout.

Below you can see the door to my space and the tail of a little dog. A man came into the studio today looking for the dog, asked me about it in French, and when I clearly didn't understand, barked at me. Then I got it. The international languages of mime and sound-effect are seriously undervalued.


Below is my work table and the rest of the studio where another artist will soon join me. It's a bit bare.


And last, the view through the door as I sit at the table. The trees in the courtyard are taking over and bulging beneath the bricks.

First Day

These pictures are of the view from the "birds nest" bedroom at the apartment in Geneva. The bedroom sits higher than surrounding buildings and has beautiful views of the surrounding city.

For the month of September, I will be working as a resident artist at the Bruckner Foundation for the Promotion of Ceramic Arts. It's about a mile walk away from the apartment, just across from the Arve river in Carouge. Carouge was home to a large ceramics factory from 1803-1933 as well as the old Jewish cemetery (stones date back to 1779.) Now it is home to a large number of artists' studios. Today was my first day in the studio. I met Sophie and Maude, the two women who run the organization part time. Sophie is the administrator and Maude the ceramics instructor. I was somewhat surprised to learn that I am the only artist who will be working in the studio for the next couple of weeks. It seems that most of my time will be spent working in the space by myself. I imagine it will be lonely but probably good for production. Another artist will arrive on September 17.

Sophie had ordered clay to be ready upon my arrival. I walked up with a large rolling case full of tools and glazes (all of which passed TSA inspection!) Sophie showed me around the studio which was filled with things both familiar and uncanny - the kilns are unlike any I have seen before, which should make things interesting. After showing me around, Sophie left me to unpack my things and get settled, which I did. After everything was ready to go, I opened the cardboard box which had been waiting for me. I expected four 25-lb. blocks of pre-mixed, wet, white-ish clay. I found two 50-lb. bags of dry white-ish powder labeled "Ceramic Body." Well, I assumed, based on our many conversations about low-fire white clay, that this was simply the correct clay body but in the wrong form. Sophie came by and asked me about it. I said that while it wasn't what I expected, that I could make it work. Out came a bucket with a bit of water, a scoop, and a large 1x2. I began to pour, mix, stir. Over and over. How could I make the clay plastic and ready to use quickly? I'm in a land of cheese and wine - not a problem. I really kind of enjoyed the process, felt like I was getting back to the physical basics of ceramics which I've abandoned in part by buying wet clay. Well... it wasn't long after I'd finished (except for the wine and cheese part) that Maude, who knows ceramics, came along. We were introduced for the first time. She and Sophie spoke in French for a while, gesturing towards my dry material. They paused. Turns out they did indeed get the wrong thing. All of my work was for naught. Maude was able to produce some low-fire white clay for me to start with and they will order more for me soon.

I worked with the clay for about a half-hour and then walked the mile back up the hill to the apartment. I expect tomorrow will be more productive.