Category: UNCC

After many tense moments of waiting, configuring my pieces on the table carefully, then going to the glaze room to wait for my chance to defend my pieces, I was confronted with a single question before the critique: “Curt, where do you see yourself in the future?”. I was unsure of how to answer the question, then Tweedy clairfied herself, “ceramicly”. I told her my goals based on my feelings at the moment she asked and after taking a second to look at my pieces I told her “I want to go bigger, but make my pieces lighter”. She pondered the table a little, looked to my cyllinders, said “your little guys get an A”, she looked at my tall cyllinders, “these are very interesting, I like them, well done”, then ok, your bowls Curt, hmmm…. not a perfect half globe in the bunch (a project-based peev of hers) “well, they are overall good, B”, then in a matter of seconds… “spheres and bottles, A, free project, was it 5 bowls?” No Tweedy, it was 5 bowls and 7 bottles, “oh, I made you work hard didn’t I”, no, it was fun, I enjoyed making the bottles, “hmm… ok, A”… “Curt, it gives me great pleasure to assign you this grade…” she holds out the review sheet in front of me…

A
I am really excited, so much so that I am now almost jumpy, and looking for people to tell 🙂
I did it, I got an A in ceramics.

In a few hours I will be getting up to go to my ceramics “exam”. My final grade will rest on my 25 self-selected pieces. I have over 140 pieces completed, and I haven’t been able to convince myself that I have selected the best 25 pieces. I spent a lot of time looking over them, but im still uncertain. How do I know what someone else will like of my work? I can’t count on the work that I like myself, because Tweedy’s opinion is totally different, she is a strange creature. I have been worrying about every possible aspect of things: the forms (and their compliance with the projects), glazes (their application, their appropriateness for each piece), the compliment between pieces, and a variety of other things that the artistic types like to pick about. I don’t know when the last time was that I was this nervous about something.
One spot of bright news (or maybe just something to further complicate things), there are 3 kilns currently loaded with my work that will be unloaded tomorrow, providing me with even more options for pieces to select for my projects.

This morning it was about 60 degrees, and lightly raining when I left home. I opted to wear a tshirt and jeans, no jacket, heavy coat or scarf. Apparently I am the only person who feels that dressing the way I did was warm enough for the day’s weather. Everyone I saw entering campus today had on a coat, or at the very least, a sweater. Am I just totally hot or is everyone cold paranoid? I don’t like feeling like an outcast because I don’t freeze my balls off at 60 degrees.

Before in Barnard I had to watch for the lab rule Nazi, coming in and verifiying compliance with all posted rules.
This semester, meet the Barnard Lab Super Bitch. She stands about 4ft, 6 inches and is of Asian origin. Her mission in life? To make sure all systems are functioning and showing their login window, and doing it as fast as possible. The she-devil (or is it taz devil?) of the lab swoops in silently, runs down each row of systems, jiggles the mouse and presses the spacebar on every non-occupied system and then leaves just as quickly as she appeared, all without smiling, saying a word to anyone, or appearing to care at all. I would have to give her a 9.5 out of 10 on the borg scale.

The ceramic studio at UNCC is a shared environment of clay creativity, where everyone shares common tools, clay buckets, slurry return and kilns.