Beginning of the Spring Semester

At the beginning of Fall 2009 I imagined a character of a jester. I dreamed of this character being mischievous and neither friend nor foe. Through the semester I worked my contemporary Jester into all my projects. I created a two foot wall piece of the Jester’s head eating a 21st century bird; I created a vase that incorporated the Jester chasing the bird with a net. All my work from that semester included the innocent bird and Jester in some way. This spring semester I am continuing my personal research of my two characters; The Jester and The Bird (the bird being the innocent enemy and temptation (consumption) of the Jester) I may also introduce my new character I’ve been doing an outline on: The Porn Star. I see this new character as a friend the Jester and I’ve had ideas of imitating Jeff Koon’s series ‘Made in Heaven’.

The first project will be a figurative sculpture, a darker version of my Jester. It will depict him trying to battle his negative thoughts of wanting to consume the bird. I will be working with Plainsman F100 (low fire clay) and will be either searching or trying to make a glaze for this piece. The glazing will be a bright red at the top and will melt into black at the bottom of the piece. I find these colors to represent anger and menace, two traits I hope to depict in this piece. I only want this to be two toned so that people will still look at the detailing of the piece and not get caught up on the intensity of the glazing. The Jester will be sitting on a half-wall, crouched over with his tongue out, holding the frantic bird (based on a Parrotlet) inches from his face, about to consume it. He will be on a plain square slab, like a plinth, as I am trying to re-imagine the figurine in a contemporary context. The piece will be very carved in style, with no surface texture. My intentions are that I re-imagine the jester and bring the old tradition into the 21st century. Thus I eliminated and changed a lot of the traditions of the King’s jester. Because I intend to have the viewer walk around the jester, I have decided to draw, with under glaze on the backs of both walls of the plinth. The taller wall with feature an image of a Casino (possibly River Rock as it is one of the main, local casinos) and the half wall will feature images of alcohol bottles- both referencing other ideas of what consumption is. I will use black engobe in a slip trailing method to draw these images.I plan on having him bisque fired by January 20th, and will glaze him the following day(s) and then will complete him in a lustre/over glaze firing. He will be completed for February 1st. I also hope to send this piece to Toronto for One-Of-A-Kind (another reason this is the first project).

The construction of my jester is completed, and many details are appearing. The third class will be dedicated to refining my jester, as well as drawing, using a slip trail technique, the casino and bottles on the backs of the walls with black engobe. I am leaving the sharp execution of details to leather hard as it is easier to work with, and still mendable should I make a mistake. I have been working with this particular clay for a while now and I understand how it works, when to work it and its strength. I find that the F100 clay without grog feel fine, but has a lot of strength and works like it has a lot of grog in it. Below is an image of my sketch of what I will be creating.