cooked dirt

And now some images from Ceramics I featuring the less round and less vase-like projects:

Adri's ancient style fertility figure

Cate's

another of Cate's

one by Doris

another by Doris

Kristen's

and Sarah's

Coil built animal project by Jordan

Doris' homage to Perry the Platypus

Adri's gnu

Mr. Beaver by Kelsey

Slab built narrative project by Doris

Doris again, different view

There were many more really well done Coil Animal and Slab Narrative Projects.....but most of those were finished during that final week of chaos and alas I do not yet have photos of those. Rain check on that.

all the whos down in whoville liked Christmas a lot

The first week off was productive. I secretly shopped and hid surprises. I deep fried a turkey. I watched all the required Christmas movies. Or at least the movies played while I stayed up late drawing.

It's 24" x 48" and I think it's called "To Be Here". That could change I guess. It's still fresh. I wish I had remembered to bring my other prepped wood panel home from Greenwood for the break. It would have been nice to have the stash of Sharpies in my office too.

Photographic proof that one of my brothers really does have 9 kids.

Little Cindy Lou Who playing in the Christmas snow. With a little breakfast left on her face.

Blue has been asking for snow since the day it melted last year. He's been wanting to go out and make a snowman car again (if that sounds weird...find the photos from last winter and you'll get it). It was difficult to explain to him that it was too cold for good snowballs and snowmen. We did manage to fashion one large snowball.

Blue and Violet in the snow on Christmas day. On our side of town it didn't start to stick until almost dark.

The snow enhanced my annoying blue Christmas lights on my Charlie Brown tree.

Christmas morning hula hooping. You know, it's photos like this that make me realize just how much of a freakshow our home decor really is. Wow.

She did eventually play with the toy....but only after working out all the creative possibilities of the box.

It took a while.

I know it's the wrong religious holiday but I can't shake the idea of "The Pieta" when I see this one. Blue and his cousin Logan.

it's a shirt

I don't really love surprises. Good surprises are fine I guess, but the bad ones....I hate those. And since surprises by definition come unexpected and unplanned, you never really know which kind you're going to get.

As a teenager I developed the gift of figuring out my Christmas presents. Usually just by observing I could figure out some pretty big hints. The more awesome ability though was being able to shake a wrapped gift and immediately announce exactly what was inside. Looking back now I'd say this had something to do with my object and spacial relationships but it was more impressive for people to think it was magic.

I did this gift surprise deciphering far too long though. Apparently it's pretty sad to continue shaking presents after you're a married adult. That's what the wife told me anyway, so years ago I had to put the magic away and just deal with the surprises. Christmas surprises are easy to deal with.


I've been welding since I was 7 years old. My earliest memories of drawing for fun go back to even younger ages. Yet somehow I managed to go through high school art classes and two years of undergraduate art classes before I realized that sculpture was something I'd even be remotely interested in. I remember my first week in that Sculpture I class. It was exactly like the cliche of the light bulb suddenly turning on. It would seem now that a great portion of my life hinged on that surprise.


I can sympathize with my students for this first semester. They were used to specific teachers and their methods. Nice people with very personable demeanors. Most of my students signed up for these classes because of major requirements and the rest signed up because they knew students in the past who got to use the wheel or make specific projects and they thought that would be fun.

I'm not sure I want to know if their surprise was good or bad but I do know they were surprised. This short bald guy showed up to teach their classes and at times he may have even seemed a tad sarcastic. He had some crazy ideas....some good and some pretty bad. But some of those students who may have thought they'd spend their semester in a good chair quickly found themselves controlling a table saw. Others blasted through molten metal with a cutting torch. Still others turned into pretty good welders and fashioned some very big steel sculptures.


I won't bore you with speeches about how rewarding it is to teach or how cool it is to actually be standing there when a student makes that connection and becomes instantly thrilled. I will tell you that there was one student who seemed to hate my class with a passion right up to the last couple of weeks when she finally got a handle on welding and her whole attitude changed. I'll also tell you about the young lady who literally screamed and ran away from the welder during the welding demonstration. This same lady became the first student brave enough to try welding and then went on to make an awesomely large sculpture. And then there's the almost hippie...everything she touched in the sculptural world turned to gold and I seriously think she may be addicted to 3D.

Ok, maybe I did just bore you with those. Sorry. The point was supposed to be that some of these students were pleasantly surprised by the semester.

So how about some photos to brag on my people?

Cate's famous Italian steel church

Sarah's steel apartment




Cate's laminated wood hideaway

Blake's rad death-board cart

...complete with red velvet lining and fancy mustache

Sarah's yellow submarine cart

There are many more amazing students and many more great sculptures but it's Christmas and we all have more important things to be doing. And besides I'll need to post some Ceramics images later.

holy drawings

One of the two earliest memories I have of drawing involves drawing in church. My mom was careful to provide me with paper and pens each Sunday.

Now of course, I realize she may not have been preparing me for a career as an artist. She may have been trying to keep me quiet and still.


It works for Blue.

or

Somewhere in the vast expanse of Metropolisvilleburg a mysterious black car sped out of a vacant parking lot. The local authorities had no way of knowing that the evil Mr. Turkeyman was in the back seat of that car.

( yes, that's a real stuffed turkey in the back of that car)

While Mr. Turkeyman was on his way to his next terrible plan, our heroes were relaxing on a Thanksgiving vacation. Violet Flowers, sidekick to world renown secret agent Double O Blue was enjoying drinks on the outdoor patio of the local TGI Thursdays.


It was an unseasonably warm November evening and no one could have expected what would happen next. Mr. Turkeyman was counting on that.

Double O Blue and Violet Flowers laughed and enjoyed their evening until they could barely keep their eyes open. They were sleeping soundly when their secret agent TV phone woke them from slumber. When they were informed of the recent actions of Mr. Turkeyman they just sat for a moment in disbelief.

To gather more information about the evil plan, Double O Blue would need to go deep undercover and infiltrate the inner circle of Mr. Turkeyman's closest known associates. Lucky for us Double O Blue is a master of disguise.

With information in hand our hero set out to lay a trap for Mr. Turkeyman. The evil genius was fond of long walks on the beach and this was just the type of opportunity Double O Blue was looking for. He could hardly contain his excitement when his plan began to develop.

After making a few phone calls and pulling in some backup the stage was set. All that was left was to sit and wait. Soon Mr. Turkeyman would be walking by this exact spot and then......then Double O Blue would rid the world of this menace once and for all. So he waited.

And he waited.

And he had Miss Flowers bring him some coffee and then........they got word that Mr. Turkeyman was spotted in the area. Miss Flowers ran for cover while Double O Blue called in the Bird Team.

Everyone was in place. This was it. The moment had finally arrived. Mr. Turkeyman waddled up the beach and when he was in the exact spot, Double O Blue flew over in his secret agent plane and dropped a metric ton of bread crumbs right over Mr. Turkeyman. And who loves bread crumbs more than the Bird Team? Hitchcock would have been proud of the scene as the Bird Team swept in and devoured the evil monster.

Our heroes had barely begun their celebration when they saw the real Mr. Turkeyman racing down the beach in the opposite direction. The Bird Team had devoured the Turkeyman decoy and the real Mr. Turkeyman sounded the alarm. His Turkey Team rushed in and gave chase to our dynamic duo. Double O Blue stalled the evil turkeys while Violet Flowers escaped. Blue was captured and placed in a modern bungee holding device.

After several days, Blue used his acrobatic abilities and his incredible stamina to defeat the machine and escape with only seconds to spare.

Once again the dashing Double O Blue was going to need a disguise. Using his hipster glasses he was able to pose as a hipster.

Then he quickly slipped into a new disguise in order to infiltrate a dangerous surfing gang.

Mr. Turkeyman and his cohorts got wind that Double O Blue was on their trail again and just as Blue was closing in Mr. Turkeyman climbed in his giant Basterwagon and peeled out of town.

Double O Blue knew that he had brought almost the entire Turkey Gang to justice but he couldn't celebrate knowing that some time, some where Mr. Turkeyman would return.

And Double O Blue would be waiting.

OR....

We took our annual Thanksgiving break and had a blast. The kids were cute and the weather was great...I just didn't think that would be all that exciting for internet people.

And I know it was dumb, but come on....."basterwagon"? That was nice.