We’re walking this tour back in time a bit to catch you up. I loved art when I was young with out realizing how much I loved it. Then I went to college, I ended up taking a ceramics class. I had worked with clay in highschool a little ( like got your hands dirty). We were able to take a turn on a kick wheel of some kind. That college ceramic class though, was my jam. I took all of them. I had no idea I would love mud as much as I did. I remember skipping lecture class because it was boring, I had a hard time staying awake. I would go to the ceramics studio instead of class. The professors would give me the eye, they knew. I ended up a studio assistant. On to it then, the experiments I’m sharing were executed in college (and I don’t have to tell you how long ago that was).

This stoneware sculpture, which was pit fired, was my first lesson in utter devestation. I don’t recall the assignment other than the coil technique requirement. Mind you this was my first class, not first day. I constructed this masterpiece of wonder! Did that really come out of me? I wrapped it in moist paper towels, covered it with plastics bags and left it to rest . When I returned to the studio, I skipped my brilliant self to my table and started uncovering my “David”. Insert heart drop, it had collapsed. I was mortified. I was going to make something less grand, because in all reality I sucked. Then my professor wagged her finger and added a new requirement… make it again. So I did and wouldn’t you know it, it was even better than the first. Wise woman that professor.

The experiments above were assignments at the time. They were created at diffent times through my ceramic education. I have always loved the artist Brian Froud. Even before my serious creation journey began. The last two photo’s above were inspired by his art. The leapfrog goblins were part of a metamorphosis assignment. I had made a backdrop of a kitchen counter complete with window and curtains that the sculpture was displayed on. There was actually a series, a series of banannas that I constructed in different stages of being peeled until the banana turned into the leapfrog goblins. I had a kitchen back drop for each stage, with the window showing day into night. I wish I would have kept the whole thing, but alas all I have left is the leapfrog. I might have slides with images of the whole get up. who knows?

This next series are altered, wheel thrown, stoneware vessels. The heads are lids. I can’t recall how many I made ( and I don’t feel like taking a head count). More than my immediate family, lol, I say that because it was a running joke that I had made everyone urns. You will find more on the Experimets page.

My dad, being the awsome man that he was, could see how my interest had blossomed in ceramics. He toured the college studio with me. When I had expressed I would love to own my own wheel. He came back to the studio to study the equiptment. My dad had built me a potters wheel and a clay extruder. He rocked like that. The picture above is a vase I threw on the wheel that my daddy built.

My home studio has grown since those days and for that I know I am fortunate. Well, I hope you enjoyed my musings and trip down memory lane. If you didn’t, thats on you. You could have clicked elsewhere sooner. I’m glad to have you anyway.

Peace, Love and History,

Hippie Ang