Class photo

Here is a photo from the last day of class at the art center. One of my students emailed it to me the other day. This is most of the afternoon class, two people are missing.

Home stay in Korea

I wrote the previous post and totally forgot I actually did have something to talk about. I am going to Korea during the 2009 Cheongju International Craft Biennale to participate in a home stay Sept 25 - Oct 1. I don't know the details about who I will be staying with yet, I'm supposed to get that information soon. After that I will go stay with my friend who is teaching English in Pyeongtaek, about an hour south of Seoul.

an update

Not much is going on lately, I am not working on anything exciting. But I don't like to go too long without making some kind of update on this blog.

The summer classes I was teaching ended last week. They were fun, but I decided not to teach this fall. I will talk about why I made that decision later.

Entries for the 2010 Niche Awards are due Aug. 31. I am not sure if I will enter this year. I was a finalist in the 2006 Niche Student Awards, but since then, that competition has just been a waste of money for me.

Next week I will go to Iceland and Sweden. I wonder if there are any good galleries or craft museums in Stockholm? I should probably try to find out before I go.

carrot ring pt. 2

I enameled the rest of my carrot ring last week. I was pretty much finished when I decided I hated the color, the orange is too brown. So I am going to grind off that enamel and redo it with a very orange opaque enamel. I wanted to use transparent enamels, but I can't find a good transparent orange, and I don't think using transparent orange on that part of the ring is as important as using transparent green on the top where I have all the detailed carving. It's a pain in the ass to grind off all the enamel, but what's the point in making the ring if it's going to suck?

classes

The classes I am teaching are going well. There are only 5 people in each class, and there's no one there that doesn't want to be there, unlike classes at a university. There are only 2 weeks left. I am kind of sad my classes will end soon, but I think it's better if I only teach occasionally, it will be more fun for me that way and I will put more effort into it.

This week and last week I brought in the chemicals, dyes and hardware needed to do anodizing. There are a couple people working on pieces in aluminum. Last week I did a demo on how to anodize, this week one person did a test piece, and next week at least one person will have a finished piece to anodize.

Below is my little temporary anodizing set up:


The afternoon class: