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    Work In Progress: New Series

    This series is so new, it still doesn’t have a name yet but I’m pretty excited to share the process of what’s been happening with these pieces. It all started with this video of stretching out the clay pieces and forming the rings. Once they were bisque fired, I started playing with them all on my studio floor to create intriguing compositions. I finally decided that these guys are going to have to go up on the wall so I busted out the diamond bits for my dremel tool and started drilling. I burned through quite a few bits in the process and pretty much immediately regretted not planning ahead and putting the holes in while they were leather hard but now the holes are in and I’m going to glaze these up and get them in the kiln.

    More to come…Work In Progress: New Series | the dirt | Jenni Ward ceramic sculpture

    ‘the dirt’ wins very honorable mention list!

    'the dirt' wins very honorable mention list! | the dirt | Jenni Ward ceramic sculptureFor the third year in a row, ‘the dirt’ has been honored with the honorable mention award from potterymakinginfo.com! Which is pretty amazing since we’ve only had ‘the dirt’ up and running for three years! Thanks so much for recognizing all the work that goes into making and sharing these posts. And so much thanks to all of you who take the time to read my posts, I’m so happy to have you along on this art making journey!

    For those of you that want to read the best of the best in ceramic blog posts for inspiration and education, it’s already all organized for you right here…

    www.potterymakinginfo.com

    Save the Date: Take Aways: Art to Go 2018

    Jenni Ward ceramic sculpture | nest series

     

    Pajaro Valley Arts Council’s annual fundraiser exhibit, Take Aways: Art to Go opens January 17 with a reception on January 21st from 2-4pm. The exhibit runs until March 4th and showcases local artists work all priced under $250. When you buy a piece from this show, you take it with you and the artist replaces it with a new work. I’ll be participating with work from Nest and Bone Series, so if you’ve wanted to add one of these pieces to your collection, now is the time!

     

     

     

    Take Aways: Art to Go
    Pajaro Valley Arts Council Gallery
    37 Sudden St Watsonville CA
    January 17th – March 4th
    Opening Reception January 21st 2 – 4pm

    Work in Progress: Bone Series

    With an upcoming solo show at the Grants Pass Museum of Art in April, I’ve been bouncing between a lot of projects in the studio these days. I plan to create 6 large installations for the exhibit and I’m making some new work as well as showcasing some older work. So I’m bouncing between making lots more Rock Candy pieces, more Lichen pieces, new Bone pieces and one more really new series that has yet to even be named. The Lichen and Rock Candy pieces all 500 of them total are now drying and awaiting their bisque firing. And I’m still working on the Bone Series pieces.

    I am excited to share that I think I’ve solved some structural issues I’d been having with the Bone Series. I’ve been making these pieces for awhile but I’d get some stress cracks happening during the firing process at the joint of the flanges and I think I’ve solved that problem by using cardboard templates to help me keep the flanges together as 3 solid piece of clay rather than having 6 individual flanges connecting together. I haven’t fired them yet, but already they are stronger when assembling them and so far they show no signs of cracking. Fingers crossed…

    Work in Progress: Bone Series | the dirt | Jenni Ward ceramic sculpture

    Will let you know how things develop and if my template system was a success!

    Wishing you all a Happy Holiday!

    Wishing you all a Happy Holiday! | the dirt | Jenni Ward ceramic sculpture

     

    Just a heads up that ‘the dirt’ will be on hiatus through the holidays but if you want to keep in touch, please follow me on Instagram otherwise I’ll be in contact with news, shows and studio shenanigans after the New Year.

    Happy Holidays from our family to yours!

    -j

     

     

    Work in Progress: New Series!

    A series so new, it doesn’t even have a name yet!

    If you saw the video I posted yesterday, I was stretching out clay into long lengths and wrapping them up into circles. I really loved the texture from stretching the clay and ended up making a bunch of these guys, until my studio table was nearly full of them.

    Once they were leather hard, and had enough strength to start playing with how I might compose them, I started standing them on edge by their sizes. While I’m still not really sure of all of their possibilities since they’re not strong enough to really experiment with yet, lining up the concentric circles are pretty dynamic visually.

    Now I have to think about whether they will be wall mounted, freestanding on a pedestal or the floor. I would also like to take them outside to do an ‘in the field’ photoshoot with them.

    Work in Progress: New Series!

    Right now, I’m drying them and getting them through the bisque firing, although I was kind of excited about rushing them through and I lost some to explosions because they were a little too wet (whoops!).  I’m also testing some glaze options but I’m leaning towards a matte black tone. I’m also considering putting holes in these to hang them from before I glaze fire them. I was hesitant to commit to cutting holes while they were wet and if I decide to make holes, I’ll drill through the bisqued clay with a Dremel tool but I’m going to play with them a little more first.

    This is a little out of the ordinary of my typical process of making, normally I have some inspirational ideas, create some mock-ups and decide if I’m going to go for a big installation. This time I just went for it. So these pieces, don’t have a name yet and I don’t know what I’m going to do with them exactly but there is something that is really working here and so I’m following my art intuition and seeing where it leads me, glad you’re along for the journey.

    More to come…

    Video: Stretching out Clay!

    I went through nearly 100lbs of clay making ring forms that will eventually be assembled into a sculpture. By throwing the clay on the floor, it stretches it and gives it amazing texture. I’m using a paper clay for this because it has enough strength to stretch to 4′ lengths without tearing. I used to make sculptures about 20 years ago using this stretching technique, kind of fun to return to it again and looking forward to seeing where it goes…

    Experiencing Technical Difficulties

    It isn’t the first time I’ve used this title for a blog post and I’m sure it won’t be the last but this time was a doozy!

    I’m sorry that there were no posts on ‘the dirt’ last week, I really would of loved to of shared in real time with you the new work I’m making, a new video I posted and a reminder about the awesome event I participated in this past weekend (and don’t worry, I’ll still share those things!) but my website was completely shut down for 5 days. I spent a good amount of those 5 days online with tech support, frantic with all the emails that kept bouncing and patiently holding off on pressing send on my applications for shows. These are the times when I wish the only part of my job was the one I’m really good at- having clay in my hands and that dealing with all the other aspects of running an art business were someone else’s responsibilities.

    Experiencing Technical Difficulties | the dirt | Jenni Ward ceramic sculptureIt was also a lesson in how dependent I am on my website and when its down and you’re told that you may need to have a judge sign off on paperwork to prove that you are the owner of your site, it’s pretty daunting. There was a moment that I thought it would be down for months, which is pretty much death to a small business. I’ll spare you the dramatic and traumatic details but in the end through a series on back-ass ways and strangely enough a knowledgable and capable tech who recovered an email address that’s been defunct for over two years, I was able with the click of a mouse get my site back up again. I generally take things in stride but this time, tears of woe turned to tears of joy in an instant.

    So, if you tried to contact me last week via email or you tried to buy something from the shop or share my work with a friend and you just couldn’t get through…magically, now you can. Thanks for your patience!

    photo credit: Crystal Birns