HOW DOES YOUR LIFE EFFECT YOUR ART?

Biology 101  by Elizabeth Gordon              Clay tile with photo transfer printing inks   2012      
 
The clay tile above is a piece I created this year at Hyde Park Art Studio.  With my friend and teacher Kathy Pena we experimented and created a type of ceramic ink that we could use on low fire clay.  In this piece I had experimented successfully I think with overlays.  The idea for this piece came from my Mother's love of biology and nature.  She studied science in college and taught biology and chemistry in high school.  She taught me and my brother the love of all living things as children.  She formed stories around different kinds of insects to help us learn about their lives and habits so we would understand them and not be afraid of them.  I grew up fascinated with all insects.  Growing up in a tropical environment like Florida one becomes used to being surrounded by bugs of all kinds.  And more recently spending summers in the mountains of the Blue Ridge Mountains I have widened my knowledge of various insects.  Their colors can be brilliant and their structure complicated and fascinating.  From my Mothers' love of science and nature comes my interest that transfers into my art.  Sometimes it is conscious, other times I think it is not.  If you think deeply about how you grew up, what influenced you, what your parents did, what you were surrounded by..you might surprise yourself with what you discover that influences your art.  Sometimes it can be the most minute of things...we are complex organisms ourselves....where a hint of a smell can whisk us back to a childhood memory...like riding down a gravel road in Mississippi, windows down in a 1940's Hudson and red clay dust whirling in...will I make a piece of art from those memories or have I already?
Think, remember, think, recall, and you may just be amazed!

Test Tiles for Transfers on Ceramics

Test Tiles for Mixed Media Art Project

These are not decals, this an actual printing on clay using a ceramic ink on raw clay, then fired. It has taken us much practice and experiments to get this to work. In these pictures you will note the image looks pixilated, it is due to the canvas the clay was rolled out on. There are many variables that effect the look of the image.

I am working on a project that will use images and thoughts from my Mothers life, as a type of portrait and honor to her, but in general to all women of my Mothers generation who survived two wars and a great depression-they are made of stern stuff, but who also wore there badges with grace and compassion. My Mother was beyond a sewer, she was a seamstress, a tailor, and artist with cloth and needle. She also was a science teacher majoring in biology and chemistry. Her love of nature and science was passed on with great love to myself and my brother, and like a stone dropped the ripple effects go on to our whole family. Now her grandsons hunt fossils and points with great glee...a gift given from another generation. At almost 99 she still is a presence in my life, even with the effects of a massive stroke 9 years ago, she can still communicate love, grace, compassion and determination. I am always in awe of her being and thankful for the gifts she has given me and others. So it will be in an art piece, perhaps many, that I will honor her as Mother, as Earth Mother, as life giver, as woman, as love....it will be a theme in my art to honor these gifts. As Dali, Jasper Johns, and many other artists develop a symbology of language that reappears in their art, my art is developing its own language, its own alphabet. So these test tiles are the beginning of a mixed media piece in the making. As the piece progresses I will share it with you.

Photographic Images on Clay

Images on Clay

I was interested in how to get photographic images on pottery. My pottery teacher, Kathy, and I did some research. We already knew we could use decals applied after the clay was fired, but we were looking for something different that could be done at an earlier stage in the process. We discover a ceramic ink we could make and apply to "raw" clay. The photo's here are some of the test tiles I did. We had mixed results, trying different glazes and ink application. Once we seemed to get a clearer image we decided to try going from a flat surface to a three dimensional one. That created a whole bunch of other problems. The first ones ran, and the image blurred. So then, as in a science lab, came more experiments and trials.