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AUGUST 2020 Issue- LIVE!

Our August 2020 issue is now LIVE! You can find it HERE.

Please view, read, share, and consider submitting.

Ayris is edited by Ryan Flaherty, S.C. Hawkins, Aviva Lilith, Sarah Yael, Soap Asbury, Clio Thayer, and Bella Mcpherson.

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July 2020 Issue- LIVE!

Our July 2020 issue is now LIVE! You can find it HERE.

Please view, read, share, and consider submitting.

Ayris is edited by Ryan Flaherty, S.C. Hawkins, and Jacob Brown.

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June 2020 Issue, LIVE!

Our June 2020 issue is now LIVE! You can find it HERE.

Please view, read, share, and consider submitting.

Ayris is edited by Ryan Flaherty, S.C. Hawkins, and Jacob Brown.

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Call us Ayris.

We’re a virtual, artistic port for IAD@NEC students and alumni, run by students and faculty--and believe us, it sure is storming out there! In this, our current moment that never seems to end, going outside and even talking to others can feel like a risk. It can be easy to give in to isolation, but we’d like to help fight against that and foster a virtual sense of community. What have you been working on during quarantine? ‘Working on’ being the important words here: we’d like to see a range from polished to process, the uncut gems, the mid-range refined ideas kicking around right now. We’d like to see work from all disciplines, and all genres, just so long as it is done with passion, and then we’ll showcase in a virtual space these works and works-in-progress to our community.

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Luna

Only a few weeks into the semester, I, like many of the IADNEC students, have spent more time crying than I have laughing. Luckily, one man is determined to change that on October 4th. 

Xavier Maurice is a senior at the Manchester campus and an RA for Lowell Residents; he knows how desperately students, especially first-years, need a break from classes-- during our interview, he said, “People need a second to just chill and laugh.” French Fried will be held in the auditorium rotunda of the French building, starting with Xavier performing a short set of his own material to loosen up the room. Then, Xavier will emcee the rest of the event to keep the open mic orderly. 

The general format will be that participants will be able to sign up to perform anything they think will get a laugh from fellow IADNEC students, Xavier will call up three names at a time, and each person in the block of three will be allowed five minutes for their set, whether it be pre-rehearsed or improvisation. During each block of three, the social-media handles for the performers will be projected onto the drop-down screen on the stage as a thank-you-shout-out for being brave enough to put yourself out there to try and make people laugh. 

Also, if French Fried receives a largely positive reaction, Xavier plans to start a monthly joke-writing event, where people can get together and see what makes a joke a success or a flop.

As final words of wisdom, know that every topic is fair-game. However, knowing your audience is an important part of getting them to laugh, or in Xaviers words, “Say what you want, but be smart about it.”

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Adventures of the Fantastic and Nearly Professional Time Traveler #1

Shit Ways to Spend a Saturday #17: Bleeding out on vomit orange shag carpet to Billy Joel’s ‘The Stranger.’

A serial written by James Morris

If I kept a diary, this is how today’s entry would go: 

Dear Diary, 

Today, I died and my only witness was a cat with three eyes and wheels for hind legs.  Also, Billy Joel was playing. Scenes from an Italian Restaurant.  I would have preferred Only the Good Die Young, if I’m being honest.  I’m an ironic ass like that. 

Sincerely, 

Charlie LAST NAME REDACTED (old habits die hard.)

But I don’t, I’m too busy to keep up with something like that. And if I did, that means I’d be thinking about myself, which is never a good thing, in my opinion.  That’s why I love my job. Job being semi-professional time traveling spy chaser. Case could be made that I, too, am a spy, but that just contradicts the job title and while I have brought it up to the ol’ boss woman, I find it best to not question it too much.  

It had been a pretty simple mission, this time around. Go back to the seventies, pretend I don’t know how Star Wars ended, and save some baby politician from assassination by a futuristic angry white dude.  Same old, same old.  

Except, of course, this time, I was the one who got killed. Well, nearly, but that’s another story.  You see, usually, I’m not the one who dies.  Really, no one is supposed to die in these missions.  

Alright, fine, it was one time and I was a rookie and it wasn’t even that much of my fault! And it was a bad guy (like really bad, KKK bad) who was already dying that night and- 

Wait, I’m perjuring myself.  Forget I said that.  

So here I am, dying on the orange shag carpet in the mid-century cape of this forty-something woman trying to be hip and empowered (because it’s the seventies, sweetheart), while my cat, Mercury (like the Freddie, not the planet) stars at me from where she’s stuck up on the kitchen counter.  

Honestly, the worst part of this whole situation is that there is carpet in the kitchen, but perhaps my priorities are out of whack.  

I swallow and shift slightly, pressing my shirt (cotton, blue, Hanes brand, has a picture of a dog with the words Wag to Go! printed beneath), into my currently bleeding midsection (ribs, red and uncomfortably yellow in some spots, Charlie brand, does not have a picture of a dog printed on it.) My intention was to stop the bleeding, but my impromptu tourniquet doesn’t seem to be working.  I sent a signal out to HQ, but I’m ten miles from my intended target. Bastard lured me out too far.  Guess it’s what I get for having a pride complex.  

I just hope this record doesn’t skip on me. There is not a single worse way to go than with Billy Joel screaming the word boots above your head over and over. 

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Luna

Coffee shop reviews from “just a writer”.

Café la Reine: 

Atmosphere: the dim lights and cozy decor speaks of relaxation without distractions-- the type of place you would go to complete homework, but not to hang out with six friends. the bar of sugar and creamer was a little messy but to a forgivable extent.

Staff: the staff were friendly and speedy, letting me enter and leave within five minutes without feeling unwanted.

Coffee: what is most notable about this establishment, however, is the lack of selection available. The coffee was the type of bland that an extra sugar packet from your normal amount somehow still leaves it tasteless and almost intolerable. 

Rating: the staff was decent and quick, the atmosphere is pleasant for introverts, but the coffee was unredeemable, 4/10 stars.

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Darby Dwyer, 2019

@what_most_dont_see

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Luna

Coffee shop reviews from “just a writer”.

A&E: 

Atmosphere: this coffee shop is pleasant but gave me a sense of claustrophobia while inside: people would have a difficult time sitting back-to-back at the two tables inside the shop and getting to the sugar and creamer bar would be difficult if a queue was behind you while ordering coffee.

Staff: the staff was absolutely fantastic; if I was rating this shop on how welcome I felt, A&E would get top marks.

Coffee: the coffee is bitter and over-roasted, and the flavor shots are hardly noticeable: my caramel flavor shot tasted as if someone who ate a caramel candy the day before exhaled into my cup. 

Rating: you know how some musicians are terrible people, but their music is good enough that you still listen to them? Well, A&E is the opposite of that. I can only give A&E 5/10 stars.

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Hannah Page made “bloom” to be etched into copper. Follow her! @bruisedbarf

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Prompts of the week 9/23-9/28

Where do you feel the most at peace?

Word for this week: garbage.

*Any work you did in or for class is always welcome as well!*

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Emily Woods, “Color TV”, 2019. Mixed media using gesso, acrylic, and India ink.

Emily Woods is an artist and illustrator at the Institute of Art and Design at New England College. You can find her instagram @sunny_comb, where her commissions are open!

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“Mochie” Cover

Rissa Marino

@mochiewinchester

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“Hair Raising” 2019

Rissa Marino

@mochiewinchester

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Friday Foundations!

After a great presentation from Deo Mwano about authentic engagement, here is some of the creative work we all did in the afternoon.  

“No talking. Through our marks, two of us built something like a conversation on the paper.”

“An experiment, but I like it. I was in an abusing relationship, and I’m trying to recover how it felt.”

“We made a bunch of arms that can interlink. We were thinking about connection. The arms are Kermit arms.  Why Kermit? It’s Kermit because it’s Kermit.” 

“Just hole punching cardboard.”

“You should all keep making flowers.”

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There’s a New Ayris Blog in Town

In its 7+ years of existence, the Ayris Creative Arts Journal and this blog, has always been about putting the spotlight on the polished, final products created by the students at the Institute of Art and Design at NEC, but only tangentially about the creative process. This time around, we want to flip that equation.

As First Years, we’re looking to build a platform where our peers of creators can share their passions with each other and showcase the diverse processes of all the disciplines.

We want what you would keep in your folder for years.  Those crumpled drafts and the quick sketches in the margins, and every piece of unfinished art that acts as a step towards creating something wonderful and unique. If you’ve got something that you would show to your friends or your mother, we want to see it as well. We’re family.

We will be putting up content across the week: creative work, reviews, interviews with visiting artists and writers, and notes about events in the community that you will want to attend.

More than anything, though, we want this space to be filled with your creativity and work. The sweat and the tears and the raw glimmers of beauty.

There are three ways you can engage and share your perspectives.

1)     Every Thursday, there will be a 20-minute open-ended prompt, one question and word that you can use in any way to springboard into a quick creative piece. It’s about speed and creative play. Take a picture of it and send it to us!

2)    In our effort to highlight the creative process, Ayris blog is also looking to cover the artists themselves and hear straight from the source just how they create! Each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we want a pic or two from each Foundations class. Can be group shots, can be a few pieces, anything that can show your passion and your process.

3)    Homework Heroes! When you have something a little more polished, and want to get in out into the world, send it to us!  We are looking to do rolling student features.  

All of which is to say: the Ayris blog is opening to rolling submissions. If you want to showcase your art to other people in the school, if you want to share a peer’s work you are inspired by, if you want to help build connection and community, you can submit work by sending images to ayris@nec.edu.

Ayris is looking for submissions and an audience*. :)

*(We are being held here against our will. Please read. We are only fed if we get readers.)

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Interview with Maureen Mills

By Victoria Bukofske

Ayris: In the past, your work has played with text. What inspired the use of text in your work, and what are some of the challenges you come across when incorporating text into your pieces?

Maureen Mills: I continue to use text in my work as graphic element. I thought long and hard about whether the text should be readable or if it should say something or copy some other text. But in the end it’s not about what it says but that the viewer recognizes it as writing, and then they approach the work differently, looking for a story or bringing their story to the piece.

MM: Recent work has been exploring the moon jar form- orb like forms that are stretched from the inside only after the surfaces have been textured.

A: Is there a certain rhythm to how you work? What does a typical day of work look like for you?

MM: When I have time in the studio,  I typically make work for a few days, incorporating  a couple different forms or sizes of work. And as work begins to dry I start to lay out patterns and designs. Because the techniques I use require different drynesses of the pieces, I work on multiples of any given form so that the layers can be built up as needed.

A: What are some current projects that you are working on?

MM: I am participating in an international symposium with the International Society of Ceramic Art Education and Exchange (ISCAEE)  this summer on a trip to South Korea. I’ll be doing a workshop and presenting a lecture. I’m doing the lecture with Jennifer Markmanrud, a recent graduate from our program. We wrote an article last summer for Studio Potter Journal  titled Mentor/ Mentee Experience about a workshop we took together at North Country Studio Workshops

A: What are some new challenges and formal constraints that you are setting for your work?

MM: I’m not sure there is any great evolution. Ancient forms and techniques were just as complex and innovative as they are today and frankly much is still the same.

A: In other words, how do you keep finding new and inventive ways to keep challenging yourself as an artist?

MM: By making work! One thing leads to another. In fact, a couple years ago I wasn’t interested in working on the potter’s wheel so I spent the better part of two years doing handbuilding.  Because approaching the surface work on those pieces was so different than on the wheel (I decorated surfaces before building with slabs as opposed to throwing forms and then decorating) it changed my work when I returned to the wheel.

A: What are the different challenges you come across in creating a functional piece vs a decorative piece?

MM: Functional work takes additional attention to form in that a rim on a cup has to beg for lips to drink from it and a teapot spout has to pour smoothly and be balanced properly. But regardless of purpose, each form must be considered fully, addressing how a bottom is finished to the edge of the rim.

A: As someone who also has a degree in Chemistry, do you think there are separations and overlaps between science and art? In other words, do you find that there is a line where art and science blur? Is art ever dependent upon science?

MM: Sure they blur. We use the scientific inquiry process all the time- we ask questions, we pose solutions, we try them out, we evaluate the results and apply that to the next thing!  Both science and art are about developing a process of inquiry that feeds our need to create, whether that is more scientific experimentation or designing a new teapot form. There is plenty of science in the studio including math, physics, chemistry and geology. You have to be a little interested in all of those things when you work with clay!

A: In creative work, do you believe there really is such thing as mastery, or does each individual project demand a new understanding and development of skills? Why or why not?

MM: I think there is mastery, but there continues to be learning. Just today I did something in a way I never have before. Not earth shattering, but a new form demanded a different process and I had enough mastery of my material and process to trust that a new approach would work.

A: How would you define quality? In your opinion, what elements separate an amateur piece from a masterpiece?

MM: Deliberate action in every aspect. Addressing finishing from bottom to rim, including how a piece is signed. Not just settling for an outcome but deliberately approaching that result. You can tell the difference.

A: You have been working in the field of ceramics for quite some time now. For you, what would you say has been the greatest evolution of form in ceramics?