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2014 CALENDAR | NEW FLAVOURS

Welcome to the Nearly Normal 2014 calendar. Made completely from paper, it’s a fruit calendar but with a Nearly Normal twist! We’ve had such a positive response to the calendar that we’ve had to print even more! In the meantime please have a look at the behind the scene and enjoy each month.

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Typeverything.com - 5280 Magazine (detail) by Jordan Metcalf.

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"Moiré"

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Clay Club Chili Cafe'

Our University of Nevada, Reno's ceramics club is holding a sale to raise fund for our trip to Houston, TX for NCECA 2013 once again.

NCECA 2012 in Seattle, WA was unbelievably fun, and inspiring, and we are working our way towards this year's convention for that same, if not more, expectations for the new excitement. This year, we won't be holding a silent auction for our pieces because auctions take up too much time and space, and also I think we would make more profit from a sale with low prices. 

We will be holding a sale with the concept of a cafe'. In cups and bowls we made, we will fill delicious chili, hot drinks (coffee, hot chocolate, and cider... and tea? maybe that's too much work), and baked goods. 

The flyer above is designed by me. I wish I had more leisure in my time to draw digitally but I just didn't have the patience for it. The drawing printed out fine through regular printer on a regular white paper, but the drawing, especially the ones in the back with low opacity, looks really frizzy and fragmented when printed on a colored sheet....Ah well. The flyer could have been much prettier with colors here and there, but to be honest, the flyers aren't worth the time, money, and ink. 

The sale is on November 15th, 2012 from 6pm to 8pm in main lobby in CFA, UNR. Hopefully, many people will come and join us in our sale after the lecture by our visiting artist, Amy Sacksteder, who will be showing her wonderful works in our Sheppard Gallery in UNR. The show opening will be on the same night, same time. 

We Will be Ephemeral (2012), oil and volcanic ash, 60"x48"

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Love Me Not, Love Me Not, 2012

oil on earthware

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"abettertrip" Blog smartphone App logo design 2012

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"Bunz of Steel" Blog Logo compilation and header design Sept. 2012

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Don't worry. You'll FIND a way, 2011

Digital and Hand Print Broadside

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Happy birthday, Darling! I hope your day is full of joy, 2011

lithograph

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!!!, 2011

Linocut relief

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Pressure Matters.

Okay, so I'm working on a new assignment given by my new professor, Clayton Keyes (I should write a review on this guy, too, because his stuff is way cool!), and what should I say.... I'm super nervous around him as I'm doing this self-portrait bust project.

This isn't the first time I'm doing a bust, but this will be the first time for me to actually try to approach some extent of realism. With an expert on figurative sculptor watching me from the front, back, side, and above me is laying much more pressure upon my conscience than I imagined. I'm not saying it's bad because you need that mental push to actually improve and get what I want out of this project with him. The problem is, however, that I can't quite control what I'm doing, or rather, my head goes blank before him whenever he's watching me fail my clay.

How embarrassing. Yes, embarrassment is huge here. I think he holds some level of expectation for me because he has SEEN my previous work (or rather, current work) to somewhat judge my skills. I really don't want him to bring down that expectation level of me, and at the same time I really hate that I'm talking about "expectation of peers" when I'm trying to work on my own piece to improve my skills with the help of Clayton. But I can't do much about this pressure.

*sigh* Well, during class, it was a mess. My first attempt in making a bust with two slabs just didn't work out. I guess my utmost nemesis of my own impatience kicked in and screwed everything up... But after class, I did... just fine. In one hour, I busted it out like it was nothing (but of course, far from being perfect). I have decided... pressure matters.

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A Historian, A Storyteller, An Artist: Firelei Baez

Univ. of Nevada, Reno's Sheppard Fine Art Gallery is now featuring wondrous works of a NY-based artist, Firelei Baez. Her works reflect her Dominican-Republican background and shows various insights of Caribbean culture, including festivals/carnivals, mythology, history, fashion, and gender studies. 

Firelei Baez was an artist in residency in the Sheppard Gallery from the beginning to the end of August. During the one-month period, she painted a mural on two walls of the gallery.

Many of her works address the history and contemporary records of women, especially black women from the Caribbeans. Her fascination with headdresses of black courtesans and elaborate patterns gives bold fashion statement of these women as well as the symbolism behind them.

It was fascinating to listen to Firelei talk about rather strange facts about black women history. Her collective piece of paintings of her self-portraits (with extra attention to her hair from different days) is based on two very strange tests performed upon black race in the 1900s for racial stratification. One is called the "fan" test, in which one blows a fan to a black woman's hair to see if they flow or not. The other is called the "paper brown bag" test, in which a black person's skin tone is compared to a brown paper bag.

In a cloud formation, she has arranged pages of a book with little illustrations on each page. I personally didn't get the point of the illustrations. I just appreciated the elaborate floral patterns on the little figures. In Firelei's lecture, she explains that these women figure illustrations are taken from still cuts of various YouTube videos of bitch-fights. Some are wrestling each other to the ground, some are pulling and tearing each other's hair, and some are just standing in a snobbish, snapping-finger-in-your-face stance, giving that bossy characteristic. Just fascinating. These women, who are stereotypically supposed to keep their dignity and elegance, are breaking out from their social norm and have this kind of potential to create a massive explosion of adrenaline rush, anger, and action.

Firelei Baez is one of the most strikingly talented and beautiful artists I have come across. Her works explore deeper into femininity, or even masculinity of women, a subject I tend to really become attached to. I just wish that she stayed longer in Reno with us and watch her progress even more with what she has up in the gallery. It was an honor to meet such a great artist in person and have a change to ask and talk to her about her work.

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Those Who Live Up There, 2012

intaglio

My very first intaglio project. Inspired by appearance of a young, but dried pine cone.

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Self-Portrait Bust - Shack, 2011

earthware, acrylic, wood, nails

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Lisa Clague - works that explore "subconscious and intangible"

Clay is, in a way, a very feminine medium of all art medium. Traditionally, clay is used to make kitchenware such as vase, bowls, plates, cups, etc. There is something very sensual about the technique of throwing a pot on spinning wheel to maneuver the curves of a vessel. The fragile quality of clay needs careful care, like a fair maiden, full of vulnerability. Making a female figure with such feminine medium, I think, is very much appropriate and conceptually elegant. There's even a saying, "porcelain-like skin." It's a huge compliment to women (and men) to have their complexion compared to beautiful, flawless surface of a porcelain clay body.

Lisa Clague is one of my favorite contemporary clay artists, who portray that beauty of clay in her female figures. Through clay, she wishes to explore the fine line between dream and reality. The two different ideas or place of human perception mingle, intercept, and interact together at times. In Clague's artist statement, she explains that dreams can be compressed and becomes tangible and real. Her surrealistic figures contain influences of surrealist art, dating earliest from the ancient Egyptian period to the surrealism period of 1920s.

  Clague's figures are whimsical. Her theme of bringing in the world of dreams and reality together is certainly on my list of interest. Childhood, fairy tales, carnivals, dreams are incorporated in Clague's figures, which retrieves back the naive and innocent moments of our childhood and activates our playful imaginations. The figures with two heads, with a mask on, or with an animal head are creatures of our imagination, dream, or even our perception of reality. The image is strange, fancy, and amusing in a child-like way.

Clague's figures are odd. We have a female body with no arms (mended in ball-shape) with two heads, which one of it is covered with a mask or an animal head. We look at it, and we don't really have an opinion of this strange figure right away.

Clague's figures bares a sense of class. When I look at her works, I sense some degree of dignity within the figures. These figures are not very active. They are grounded to the floor, keeping their place. However, within the space they stand, they give out a strong sense of their existence and their capability of communicating emotions. Specifically, the life sized ones are like a monument with much grace and elegance, to which I would bend my knee for a curtsey before it.

What I love about her works the most is her treatment of the clay surface. The colors and the texture are subtle and light, which further exaggerates elegance and femininity. The colors are not swarming over the piece, which may dictate the clay body and the "clay-ness." The use of acrylic and oil paint on every little part of the clay may suffocate the natural beauty of the clay body. The transparency of the color coming from paint and glaze is something that grabbed my attention to form my definition of "beauty."

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Working the UNR coffin kiln

It's my first time starting a fire in anything... Unfortunately, my first experience would be in a coffin kiln. Literally, I was in panic. I have my entire summer class worth of work in that kiln. If things go wrong, it would be terrible. It'll be like losing two children at the same time. I just hope those two survive through the fire safely. I have an essay I must write by the end of today, but my mind is always hovering in the kiln room.

I thought... that bottom notch was enough to lift up the lid for preheat. Apparently, that bottom notch doesn't lift anything, so the bottom line is... I didn't open up that lid for preheat. Man, when I discovered that I was beating my head with a clench of fist. How can I be so clumsy and slow? It's my first fire, and I have repeated to myself over and over again what to do and what I should not forget. But I ended up messing up my perfect plan. It's okay... It's gonna be alright... It's just a preheat... It's okay I keep telling myself to calm down. My head is spinning and my face is covered in sweat. I gotta get hold of myself. I have two figures in. that. kiln. I gotta keep control of my panic. Thank the Kiln God (if there is one), Fred is here. He said my pieces would be fine as long as I started the fire from the lowest temperature... which I did. So I feel much more relieved than before. However, the fire only have just begun. I can't let myself go until the fire is finished and it is turned off after at least 8 hours.

I thought it would be good to write the steps in how to fire in the coffin kiln in this entry. Now that I have learned, I must record it somewhere in case I forget. How to Use Coffin Kiln

Place the cone in the kiln. Make sure of the cone's temperature that is marked on the cone (preferably... if not, trust the box)

Make sure all four dials are turned to the lowest temperature (in this kiln, the lowest is just LOW)

Leave the lid propped open for heat to escape through during preheat.

Look down on the left side of the kiln, put up the clip in place and push the start button in the middle (make sure you push ALL THE WAY). You'll see the lights go on next to all four dials.

Preheat for 8 hours.

Once 8 hours have passed, close the lid all the way and keep the kiln on LOW for 1 hour. (this kiln is old and beat up so the lid doesn't close all the way or will rise once the temperature is higher. To prevent heat from escaping less, put some shelves or bricks on top)

Once 1 hour has passed, turn all four dials to 1. From now, after every hour, crank up the temperature by turning the  dials one level by one. (There's LOW, 1, 2, MID, 4, 5, HIGH. That's 6 hours of babysitting!)

Once the kiln gets to the highest temperature (HIGH), leave the kiln firing for about 3 to 4 hours when the cone inside will melt and bend, which automatically turns off the kiln. Because the kiln doesn't quite trap the heat inside all the way,     it may take longer for the cone to melt. The clip from the bottom left will automatically release from the hold, turning off       the kiln.

Just leave the kiln to cool for good 24 hours or so.

One good tip is to constantly check the color of the fire. For cone 04, the color of the fire should be yellow-orange, more yellow than orange. If the kiln, for some reason, doesn't shut off itself and the color of the fire is white.... we got sadness in the kiln and must shut it off manually.

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