Extra Credit

 

My Place Setting

This year we were presented with the task of dedicating a place to someone of our choice. I chose my grandfather, a Navy Veteran who has been deceased for six years. As some kids idolized their fathers, I idolized him. He was my hero; he made me laugh and taught me jokes, he cleaned my scrapes and kissed my bruises,  he taught me how to repair broken things using only my hands and my wit. I never realized how important he was to me until he died. Even after he died I never realized at my young age, but as I grow up it's becoming more apparent to me.

 For my place setting, I chose the Navy aspect of his life. He was in the Navy for two years, working on the ships by repairing them or readying them for battle. For my nonfunctional piece I made it my bowl, which is a battle ship. I would have to say this was the most time consuming piece because it was a very tedious job sculpting the parts and putting them together. Many times I asked myself why in the world am I doing this when there would be a much simpler solution. But I pushed through and came out with a nice little battle ship. I'm quite pleased with how it turned out, because half the time I thought it might explode in the kiln or something would break off. But everything turned out fine, which makes me happy. 

One of my plates is a sailor's hat. It wasn't too difficult but it didn't really come out as well as I wanted it to. Unless you knew what one of those little white hats looked like, you probably wouldn't know what it was you were looking at with my plate. As for my second plate, I made an anchor. I'm much happier with this piece. Making it was really fun, even though there are lots of uneven spots in the thickness of the clay. But it was fun to make but terrible to glaze. I wanted to make it look nautical, with the blue and white and some red. It turned out a little Americanized, but I still think it looks good. It only the back that the lines are thinner which made it harder to do a quick glazing. I didn't have much time either, to glaze since this was my last piece and I chose the pattern in three different nonconsecutive colors. But I got it done and the colors didn't melt together too badly so it came out clear and precise! As for my cup, I'm not sure what's going on there since the cup doesn't really have to do with anything. It's a triangle and it has a neat little stand to sit up on. That's it. It's different and weird, and since my grandfather was different and weird I guess it makes sense.

 It was fun to create since we had more of a purpose with the clay, rather than just making bowls. I'm happy with the setting and it's representation, and I think my grandfather would be happy with it as well.