Category Archives: Soe Yu Nwe

Goodbye FURSCA summer 2012!

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Dear Fursca blog reader, In this last post of mine, I will be sharing with you results from the last firing and images of my selected finished work that I used to apply to MCAA Michigan Ceramics 2012 Biennial Exhibition and Competition. With the help of my advisor, Lynne Chytilo, and photography professor Gary Wahl, I took some photos of my summer FURSCA work to submit them to the show. FURSCA has been great fun and a major stress point of my last college summer (I’m a senior, this fall), but I am very happy that I finished it and gave it my best shot. I am very grateful for this opportunity to advance my work quality that will hopefully prime myself for my future career goal. I still have a couple of sculptures that I will be glazing and bisque-ing during the semester, but everything else is finalized. Fingers-crossed, I’m hoping for the best and that my work is good enough to be shown in the exhibition. However, I am also expecting the worst… wish me luck! So here goes the pictures! The last bisque kiln

Last Bisque kiln

a couple of pagodas popped in the kiln

Glazing the final pieces

I glazed this piece three times, firing it to cone 05 after each glazing, which means I glaze-fired it three times!

Glazing the bed sculpture which I titled, "Sleep" now

Final selected sculptures

Title: Palette House . Media & Technique: Handbuilt earthenware (cone 05), Glaze and Oxides. Dimension: 18x 12 x 8.5 (HxWxD in inches) Year completed: 2012

 

  This’s about it! If you are curious and want to check out more random ceramics stuff, please visit my other FURSCA blog. Thank you very much for your interest! FURSCA rocks and Ceramics is awesome! Major thanks to FURSCA, again! Cheers, Soe Yu Nwe’13

Approaching the end

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This week is the week before my last week of Fursca and I will be sharing some pictures of my fired work from my last glaze firing, some new unfired sculptures that I made in the last two weeks and something exciting that popped up unexpectedly. So here it goes…

Sculptures in progress

Bed (Bird's eye view)

Head view

 

 

 

 

 

Bird's eye view

The handbuilding part of this piece is over and it is left to dry for now and scheduled to be fired on August 13. For more picture views, see here.

This is a work in progress.

 

 

 

 

House and Pagodas

This is a group of sculptures I am scheduled to be bisque-firing on Monday, Aug 13th. More detailed images, here.

Testings

test glaze tiles

For more pictures of the test, click here

Pictures from Last glaze firing

Fired gas kiln

 

Fired sculpture

 

 

detailed view of one of my favorite finished sculptures

 

Take a look of the pictures of the fired sculptures, here!

Riot!

Lastly, I want to share with you something that I did not expect from FURSCA: my friend Ken Chen’s tattoo. My friend recently got a tattoo of my test tile on his back. Honestly, I did not have anything in mind when I carved onto those two pieces of clay. I was just intuitively reacting to the lines, shapes and forms of the clay because I did not want to throw it away. Originally, I made a rectangular-ish form to practice carving (carving onto a three dimensional form is my favorite among all the processes involved in ceramic) but the tile fell to the floor and broke. So I threw away the smaller pieces that I could not find the reason to save and work on the two bigger ones.

The thought of a FURSCA project accidentally giving birth to the imagery of my friend’s tattoo makes me giggle every time I think about it. Indeed, you never know what’s gonna come out of the kiln. Who knows, a tattoo?

Yes, another lesson on expectation management.

Out of the blue riot!

 

 

 

More images of Ken’s tattoo from dried to bisqued to fired, click here.

Visit my Tumblr to follow more of my work in progress, studio photos, etc. Thank you for checking out my post! I will say goodbye in my last FURSCA blog post next week! See you then.

Expectation management: Glaze firing

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Our kiln gods sitting on top of the firing kiln

By this 7th week, I have finished handbuilding, bisqueing and glazing all of the eight sculptures that I started. By Friday, with the help of my advisor, Lynne Chyilo, I will have started firing the kiln and hopefully, the kiln will be cooled and be unloaded by this weekend. I am very excited to see how they’d look like since it is such a long process of creating them and I have certain expectation of them while glazing them. Just FYI, glazes are chemicals in powder form mixed with water to put on bisqued ceramics (ceramic ware that are fired once but still porous) for a glass-like layer of color or decoration. Since they are chemical and have to be fired to be bonded to the ceramic surface, they are different from paint. The way they look before they are fired is very different after they have been fired, so visually I had difficulties envisioning them when I put them on my ceramicware. I always end up being so disappointed at how they turn out. But this time, I felt a little more comfortable and confident that they would turn out the way I envisioned them because my vision has been adjusted with experience. I might be speaking ahead of myself.

Let me share with you some pictures of the glazing process and the glaze firing. I hope that by next week, I can share with you some pictures of the finished work.

I also did my presentation this past Thursday. Here is an overview of the slides I presented.

Here is the overview of the eight sculptures I created in the presentation. Photos were taken before they were dried, bisqued and glazed.

Thank you for being interested!

 

Can’t believe it’s week 6

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Since I started my fursca on June 11th, I will be done on August 17th.

So this week is my week 6, already!

I am going to switch to Ro99 porcelain and Ro42 earthenware in the remaining few weeks.

Right now I have about eight sculptures that I made by using RO23 stoneware clay. I am drying them out so that I can bisque-fire them and glaze fire them to finish them up before my presentation next Thursday. But they are drying slower than I thought so I worry that they might not be dried enough to bisque on the scheduled date.

 

This is my favorite sculpture so far

 

Thanks for looking!

Hi, Albion College Fursca Blog!

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Hi everyone,

This is Soe Yu Nwe or simply, Joy.

Even though I have a tumblr blog for random posts related to my thinking process for Fursca project, I’ve been feeling nervous posting on this community FURSCA blog for some strange reasons.

Anyway, my Fursca project is a creative project. It is a continuation of a project I started last summer. I will be making ceramic sculptures and writing an artist statement. All of the work I am doing during Fursca will make up the portfolio I need in applying for graduate schools.

For the past weeks, I have been researching on writing an artist statement, applying to scholarships, and other things related to career growth. I have started about five sculptures and will be making more. Last week had been a productive week. I finally feel like I am getting back into the groove.

Pardon my grammar and erratic writing style.

Fortunately for the reader, I will be posting mostly pictures and snippets in the future!

Feel free to check out my Fursca Tumblr. I post more pictures but the posts are less organized.

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