My Studio at OSU

What follows is a collection of works completed during my MFA studies at The OSU. These objects didn't get a show, but were often members of group shows.

Salt Plate

I experimented with salt quite a bit. This is a growth of salt crystals upon an old photographic plate. Anciently speaking, glass plates were coated with photo-reactive compounds and these became the negatives. Development of photographs is an acid-base-salt step process, so I thought that it fit.

Group Paper Stand

Paper dipped in casting slip and allowed to dry. As the slip dries and shrinks the paper curves and is able to stand. I further developed this idea and used it for the installation "Approachable."

Paper Stand

Placed upon it's own pedestal, this lowly piece of paper and clay gains importance.

Now it's Glazed

Lead brick slammed into an unfired mound of clay with a section of shale beneath. Lead has a bad rap in the ceramic world and it's too bad because it can produce some great colors. Shale is a sedimentary rock formed by compaction.

Hose

What can I say?... more of a "can I really make this" sort of incentive. Nobody said anything about this sculpture in my critique.

Salt Journal

I began keeping a log of my experimentations and treating it as an art object. Salt it a material I take to signify growth and transformation.

Salt Book for Jack

Unsatisfied with the initial presentation, I introduced more. Jack Burnham's "Great Western Salt Works" influenced this piece.

Salt Book for Jack Detail

Process Book

Another instance in which documentation of the work and my thought process becomes a work of art. I was thinking of the impermanence of installation work and the proliferation of documentation. I began to wonder which was more important.

Trayed Failure

I also treated my failed investigations as works of art. In this case, I was looking to produce a gradual slaking of a clay post. All it did was topple over. So I threw in some mineral signifiers and brought about a Deuchamp assemblage.

Smells Like an Opening

This piece began with dissatisfaction for the gallery floor of the OSU Main Gallery. I brought my own floor to the gallery. It caused me to consider the false "staged" feeling I experienced during gallery openings. Fresh paint always made me feel like something was being covered up. The bucket is mostly filled with plaster and topped with paint. I drilled a hole all the way through one side of the bucket for anybody that cared to look.