# 13

For my 13 piece with the criteria (tools in place) I decided to make a tea pot with the assortment of tools I use for pottery. I used a smooth rib which is the tool I pretty much made this pot with) that is how I get the gradual curve on the pot and how I made it smooth. Then I used a grinding stone for the lid by throwing a little sphere that fit rich inside the grinding stone I use for bone dry pieces and for fixing pots that have already been fired. Lastly I used 2 would knifes for the spout. I use those tools for cutting off my pot and for my 45 degree angle at the end.

For my 12 piece with the criteria (light and shadow) and peace) I chose to make a little projector to show a shadow of peace. The shadow is of a dove carrying a olive branch with a piece sign under it. I think this piece's shadow turned out really well but the actually piece didn't turn out quite how I wanted because the bowl kept falling of the stand and the cutting out was really hard. But I really like the message the piece represents. With the way the world is right now with our president that is nuts. Peace between the United States and other countries is more important than ever right now and we can all do our part. Also I had this piece done on Friday but for some reason it didn't post and I was pretty sure I did it. But that is why it is out of order. 

For my 11th piece with the criteria (cubism, black, white and accent color). For this piece I decided to focus on the exercises on the pot have to do with cubism such as the elevated bottom and the angled handle. this is one of the coolest mugs I have made yet but is was not repeat not fun to work on. I throw this pot outside today in Jamestown in winter it was about 20 degrees which made it super hard to make because right after I stopped spinning the wheel the clay would freeze as well as my hands. But it also made it interestingly easy to finish the piece in a day because it made the pot feel like it was leather hard in like 20 minuets so I trimmed it in its frozen state then quickly brought it back inside and added the legs and handle before it thawed and turned back into wet clay. It so far worked great. 

For my 10th piece with the criteria of family. I chose an interesting one, Burning Man. Burning Man is a place that I have never actually been to but has been a part of me for my whole life. Ever since I can remember I have had two weeks a year when my parents were not home for a while I never really new where they went or why my mother was always rushing to get whatever artistic piece she's been working on. Only in the more recent years have I really come to understand what an amazing place Burning Man can be. In less than a week it goes from a patch of nothing in the middle of the Nevada desert to the 3rd largest city in the united states. which is astonishing. It is somewhere I have always wanted to go to and My parents and I have decided that I was only really old enough to go and appreciate  the beauty of it when I was 18. Which I happend to just turn 18 January 10th of this year. I don't plan on going this year necessarily but you never know I might just change my mind. 

For my 9th piece with the criteria "temptation. and movement I chose to focus on romance because for humans that is pretty much the highest amount of temptation most people experience in there entire lives. The things that happen in your brain in these types of situations are fascinating and they become what we call "Love." Which is a broad term for the chemical reactions in your brain. I used the vines and the heart to represent the movement of love. The reason people use a heart for the symbol of "love" because the way there heart starts beating faster. But I think the symbol should be a brain because it is actually making everything in your body happen including the increased heart rate.

For my 8th piece with the criteria of surrealism.  I made a sort of recreation of the idea of Mad Max Fury Road this is about the scene where the king is refusing the peasants water then when he finally lets the water flow out it floods everything. In my creation the peasants are waiting for water or "tea" below the gigantic tea cup. This represents the Idea that so many people don't have what they need to survive and then there are so many people that have so much at there disposal that they can do what they please with it. This is what happens with trickle down economics the rich get richer while the poor get poorer. such as in the tea cup the tea cup is full but there is nothing flowing down to the people who don't have anything. 

28 day challenge

 

For my first pice of the infamous February challenge using the criteria New, and colored pencil I have 

decided to concentrate on the message of reproduction. Isn't that the ultimate representation of creating new life? I believe it is, it is a powerful aspect of our society, it is something that we ultimately fear a majority of the time. Whole industry's capitalize on the fact that creating another human being to early in someone's life  could ultimately ruin parts of their life. But the color eminenates the joy in something as powerful of reproduction. It is sometimes peoples only goal it to create someone they can be proud of and who will uphold the greatest values you believe in. It's a beautiful thing. 

 

For my second pot in the February challenge using the same criteria I have made something I like to call the ladder of color. This can be interpreted as somewhat of a spiritual journey for some. For me (as an atheist who doesn't believe in the ideas of heaven and spiritual enlightenment) I like to see it as  a general path to success. But I like the contrast between the negative connotation of a spiral and the positive representation of gold being the top. Like in most cases what goes up must come down. because like an anyone's life no matter how successful there are ups and there are downs and I like to think as the journey between the two parts of your life is a spiral weather it's going up or down. Think of a point in your life when you up and felling great and the point in your life when your down and felling terrible and ask your self a simple question how do u describe the part in between? 

This is my 3rd piece of the 28 day challenge, with the new criteria or should I say criteria's "Breakfast and Pastels." So what I chose to focus on was contrast in the piece I was making, and not just contrasting colors. So I made a piece I like to call "A Chalice fit for a King." The piece is based on Boulder Highs rivalry with the dreaded Fairview High School. It seems to me like there is no actual real reasons why we hate Farview in the way that we do. There are only a few sports that really acknowledge the rivalry. The largest one being football. Which I hate to say it but for the last couple years farview playing us in football has been a joke we get our asses kicked every time we step out on that field to play the white and reds. There are a lot of sports we can consistently beat them in though. I think soccer being one of those sports. But in the long run there seems to be no point in the long lasting feud we have with each other. In my opinion we should all take a page out of our mountain bike teams hand book. For years now our MTB team camps near farview, shares food with them, and shares resources with them. there is still the friendly competition but it is reasonable.        
I would like to here from anyone who strongly believes in the rivalry.
I will say though that I now have a strong aversion to chalk pastels, this is my 4th attempt at chalk and it was still  nearly impossible to keep the colors separate because they smudge like crazy. I envy the ones who can just draw a picture with this horrible substance.

 

For my fourth piece with the criteria, micro and paint. I decided to make a mini swan out of clay then after I fired the piece once then  I painted it with acrylic paints. A swan has always been an interesting animal to me because there so majestic. they are also very beautiful. I decided to make the beret because for some reason when I think of swans I thing of french. the french are an arty people 

My fiftieth piece surrounding the criteria of repetition and food/ fruit. I decided to make pares on the wheel. Pares are one of the coolest shapes you can make on the wheel in my opinion. They are also one of the more challenging things to make and it took me a while to master how to do them because you have to train the clay to go in at the top rather than fall out like most pots do. It is also a very interesting shape to make because it is kinda like throwing a sphere but it is more fun to shape because after you basally make a sphere you have to throw by shaping the bubble. Unlike most throwing you cant put your hand on the inside obviously so you have to sort of swish it and instead of collapsing like most pots would it forces the air to the top forming the point on the top of the pare.  

for my sixth piece with the criteria's "Night and Text" I decided to use a passage from one of my favorite poems called "Go The Fuck To Sleep" by Adam Mansbach. This poem is about a father who cant get is toddler to go to sleep. I thought this was a perfect thing to put on a pair of thick glasses, because I know before I went to sleep I always liked a warm beverage like milk and honey or tea.  This is one of the funniest poems I have read and I recommend everyone to look up the version of Samuel L. Jackson reading this poem on YouTube because it is hilarious.  I cant relate yet to having children but I think from what I have heard from parents this is exactly how they feel 90% of the time at around bedtime. This was one of the most fun projects to work on yet.

 

My sixth piece using the criteria of distortion and voyeurism. I decided to focus on the Ideas of religion, especially with the radical president that we just got stuck with. The distortion of religion has been around forever and most people in some way have contributed to that distortion one way or another. I am a victim of this too there are a lot of aspects of religion that I majorly disagree with. As an atheist I have always looked at any religion with skepticism because naturally I cant really relate to a majority of there views. Now in my perspective a good part of religion is just believing to give yourself some sort of guide to life. A basic example is if you behave poorly and do bad things you will go to hell. Now in most cases this isn't a bad thing to believe in, it makes people try to be the best selves that they can be. But also a good amount of the time this ideal can be pushed on others to make more conflict. In a scenario in my life is we have a fairly radical family of Christians that live and our town and run the church. One time when we were kids my friend Julian and I were playing in the town park doing what boys do, in all this I punched Julian for some reason or another. It was pretty hard but it was still playful I wasn't trying to conflict any real lasting damage to him. and fairly abruptly after that the mother of this family ran out of her house and aggressively scolded me for what I did. I had never met her in my life before this and the only member of the family I ever briefly met was there oldest son. I don't recall everything she said about me but she did tell me that I was going to hell, especially her knowing my parents she was sure of it. We were kids so we didn't really fight back for long we mostly just left the situation but I do remember Julian sticking up for me fairly aggressively, like the great friend he is.  But this defiantly triggered a response  to religion that I hung on for most my childhood. In general I wanted absolutely nothing to do with it. Now in my young adulthood I understand religion much more and am not really against it but in a large percentage of situations I don't agree with it. Coming to the point of this pice revolving the distorted view of Muslim's that the united states has. That is why the owl is wearing a Muslim hat. I just think that in the face of having a horrific president like Donald Trump we should not give in to any of his views especially regarding religion and sex. Don't let your views get distorted by this man! 

The criteria for my seventh piece was music. This was my first piece that was not made out of clay and it was a lot of fun to make on the computer. I made this in design tech. The music box was very interesting and fun to make my first 3D piece in that class. It has taking me a long time for me to learn how do to make anything on the computer and I am very exited with the first piece that came out of the laser cutter. It was really cool to learn how to use the laser cutter because I have never ever liked computers and this class is defiantly helping me enjoy computers a little bit more. P.S. THE LASER CUTTER IS AMAZING

 

Happy valentines day everyone, Lifting has become the love of my life for now and I hope it is always something I will love to do through out my whole life.  I also hope pottery will be something I will enjoy for a while even if it is not going to become a career for me like lifting might. I go to the gym about 4 to 6 hours a day and I always have a blast in the gym. This logo is the most common logo for Olympic lifting and this lift called the power clean and jerk and it is also one of my favorite lifts.  I just got the books to take a class to get my personal training certificate and I am planing to get a job right out of high school training at the north boulder rec center. For the last year or so I have amerced myself in researching everything I can about lifting and nutrition and it is really something I believe I could spend my whole life doing. I have been watching all the films I can on nutrition and lifting. I have seen most movies you can name that involve the poor health in this country. And one of my favorite movies I have ever seen is "My Magnificent Obsession"  It is an amazing documentary that explains the life of an amazing man named C.T Flecher. and his goal to open his own Iron Addicts Gym Another great lifting movie is "Pumping Iron"  about two of the greatest lifters who ever lived Arnold Schwarzenegger and  Lou Ferrigno and there battle for greatness.