Katherine Lin - A Strange Experience

I was drying my hair after showered last night. My sister was the next one to use shower room so she came to get ready. My heart beat gradually raised when I dried my hair. First I thought it was because of the hot shower.
I finished drying hair and quickly brushed teeth. My stomach tightened and felt like to vomit when I rinsed my mouth. My view suddenly went black in a second or two; I was scared and tried to call for help but couldn't assemble words. I could barely hear my own voice. Then I couldn't hear anything but a strange humming sound that rhymed with my heart beat. (could be the water that got in my ears during showering)
I felt dizzy; I ran to the couch and fell in it. My sister didn't know what to do, I told her to get mom. The humming sounds were gone when I saw mom. I asked mom to stay while I fell asleep because I was still trembling.

I realized later that I probably held myself back from fainting.
I've been staying in front of the computer to work on a research paper for most of the day, and didn't go out to take walks. The fact that I tend to take long showers might also add to the cause. (the evaporated chlorinated water and things) We were thinking of asking my doctor but it was the last night before I take bus back to school. I probably should ask the health center when back to AU.

Katherine Lin's question

My question for the study is related to my working process. I haven't had much sculpture experience, and so, this ceramic course is quite new to me.I enjoyed making straight edges and rigid shapes from the previous assignments, so I started with a simple triangular form.When it came to slip painting, I began with geometric patterns that followed the sculpture.Later, after seeing the test tile, I realized the white slip was likely to blend into the clay color after firing. I got slightly frustrated since most of the design was white, and stopped working for a few days.The clay body was dried when I came back. I spent more time smoothing the surface and decided to differentiate white patterns by carving.As a result, the clay dust that came from carving covered the entire piece. I wiped it with sponge to blend the patterns more, now it has a sense of being worn-out.I want to know what kind of relationship the patterns and the piece itself present; and if the fact that I kept changing my mind shows in the work.

Arianna

I completely forgot to mention this in class!

The Bergren Forum is on Thursday from 12:10 to 1pm in Nevins.  Everyone should go!  The first student lecturer, Liz Wager, is presenting this week, and she happens to be my roommate.  She will be talking about and reading her poetry, which is excellent.

Gogogo!

Kathleen Rabe

Sometimes I make food and when I eat it I have no idea how I made it taste so good. That sounds ridiculous, but it's true. I was eating lunch I made today; garlic, onion, rice noodles, broccoli.. simple enough. Some chilies my roommate picked in Croatia, a piece of danish rye I learned to make in Copenhagen.. maybe that's it. What a multicultural lunch.

My boyfriend is a chef. He runs a restaurant in downtown Austin, very hoity-toity (do people still use that?). It's Italian. When he cooks for me it's literally like eating art. Ha, imagine putting a painting in your mouth and it's gone. I feel like that it kind of, actually. He has devoted his whole life to this art, and in an hour I eat it all. How rude. I would be mortified if he ate my teapot that is sitting on the table.

Maybe it's the ultimate art. Food transcends generations, certainly. It makes people happy. It torments. It's interesting that it's kind of a language everyone is willing to speak, the same guy who is making racial jokes at the dinner table could easily have had taco's for lunch and udon for dinner. Food is so easily accepted. Certainly more so then religion, cultural dress, even more then architecture.. or art for that matter.

Kathleen Rabe Midterm Q

In the manipulation project I made a small egg for the word laminate. More then the feeling of protection has come from that egg. It sparked something in me and now I have egg drawings, prints, paintings.. maybe it's about fertility and spring and my ache for home..

From the drawing of that egg I made a small sculpture. And from that sculpture a large piece, which is no longer quite so literal; it has flat and curved sides, the original inspiration of an egg somewhat abstracted into a 5 sided form. I then made stamps and stamped drawings of eggs all over the finished piece. The first egg and the final piece were distant relatives at this point and I wanted them to come back together. My question is: Did putting the original inspiration of an egg all over the outside of the piece create a cohesive result or does the form and the "clothing" seem like two ends to one idea with no middle ground?

Thanks.

Dave Mykins Midterm Question

Would you say that it's necessarily a bad thing that I didn't "strictly" follow the assignment on the 4 elements project, or is it more important that I pursued the project with my own interests in mind? Also does the fact that it sort of looks like an elephant take away an element of seriousness from my work and make it seem tacky? I feel like it almost looks TOO much like an elephant. 

Also, someone told me it looked phallic... this isn't something I want it to convey.

Dave Mykins question on "stratocumulus"

Looking over the questions about the piece to see if the question I had in mind had been asked already, I notice that a lot of people stated that it reminded them of clouds. Not knowing what stratocumulus meant, I was confused at first. visually I did not read it as "cloud" but as "slab of clay". My curiosity led me to look up the definition for "stratocumulus". After learning that it had to do with clouds, it began to make sense. But now I am left wondering whether or not this was a word that I should have known to begin with, or if everyone else looked up the definition before making a post.

With that said, "stratocumulus" is a fitting piece for this assignment. Being that the first time I saw it I made judgments before fully understanding it, (which I still don't, so I should say "understand it better") but now that I know the meaning of the title, I begin to actually think about the piece as more than a slab of clay with cracks in it.

So my questions for you are:

1) Did the title come before or after the piece was made? (and what do you find to be your way of creating? do you typically come up with a concept first, or do you physically make something and assign meaning afterward?) 

- last semester in my sound/ video class, Andrew Deutsch went off on an interesting tangent about that debate

2) Was this piece something that was planned out before you made it, or is it just something that you made and then built an idea around? ( sorry, I realize that this question is very similar to my last question)

3) Is the exact definition of the word "stratocumulus" important to the piece or is it just important that it has to do with nature?

-stra·to·cu·mu·lus

   [strey-toh-kyoo-myuh-luhs, strat-oh-]  Show IPA

–noun,plural-lus.

a cloud of a class characterized by large dark, rounded masses, usually in groups, lines, or waves, the individual elements being larger than those in altocumulus and the whole being at a lower altitude, usually below 8000 feet (2400 m).

Origin: 
1890–95; strato- + -cumulus