Category Archives: Assignments

Assignments

the final push

Glass as Information: Memory
For the last section of the course, we will be interpreting “glass as information” in the context of memory and how this might relate to conceptual themes in our work and/or material behavior. Draw from the reading to initiate a point of entry for yourself—memory as haunting, the memory image, the memory object, deja vu as a meeting point between hallucination and fiction, memory association, all-things-Oliver Sacks, collective memory, pre-memory, repetition, memory failure . . . I will offer a few hotshop tricks that address the act of memory in material as another potential starting point. Your project is open to whatever materials/medium suits your practice, but the work must in some way relate back to the subject matter of memory.

Memory Reading: Discussion on Wed., 4/16
Instructions for reading:

  • Read the handout
  • Look up words you don’t know and write their definition down on the reading.
  • Look up pieces you don’t know; you should identify at least 3 pieces you respond to in the context of memory, or find other references that contribute to your entry point into a conversation on memory.
  • Identify passages of text you relate to or respond to—positively or negatively.
  • Prepare some notes of ideas, comments, responses, or reactions to the reading.

Working Critique, Wednesday, 4/23
By 4/23, prepare to share with the class the following items:
an idea for your final project ten sketches of different possible manifestations of this project some actual work—material investigations or maquettes or the makings-of your work-in-progress. By 4/23, you will have been exposed to Tracy’s lathe demo, Michael Endo’s painting demo, and numerous hotshop tricks (folding, trick punties). This being an intermediate/advanced course, I am trusting you to be self-motivated enough to absorb this information and run with something you find engaging vs. being motivated by the grade for a technical assignment. Show me evidence of you either trying out a new technique or generating actual work to respond to. It is fine if your technical explorations do not sync with your conceptual pursuits at working crit stage; understanding your general explorations and potential for connections is our goal.

Final Crit, Monday, May 5
This project will be evaluated on the following metrics:

  • 1 point: conceptual development – strength of the idea; willingness to take risks
  • 1 point: project development and execution – is the work clearly evidence of a healthy dialogue between making, thinking, experiencing, incorporating feedback, etc.
  • 1 point: Title and supporting information included with work- this is only so heavily weighted because not a single one of you has upheld this standard to date.
  • 1 point: Ability to treat final critique in a formal context, presenting exhibition-ready work that does not depend on the decoder ring of the student standing next to their work, explaining their work

Final Clean-Up, Wednesday, May 7
This is not optional. This is a required clean-up for this class. Missing this will gravely impact your grade for the semester.

Assignments

week 10 various assignments

You are now all staggered at various stages of who owes me what:

Everyone owes me documentation of their project whether we crit it last Monday or today (April 7th), due one week after your crit date. Kelly and Joey owe me some supporting text with their documentation.

Everyone owes me documentation of their mapping assignment, again, one week after you present. Just a casual snapshot suffices, but if reading text is important, please make sure text is legible in your snapshot or provide supporting text information.

Rory, Jenna, and Carlos owe me mapping assignments, due Wednesday, April 16th.

Go team.

 

Assignments

documentation guidelines

Documentation for all projects are due one week after critiques, unless otherwise specified. Your goal should be to represent your work as best possible via still images, text, and/or video if necessary.

Minimum Requirements

1. A text document with your image information, including:

  • Your name
  • Project Title
  • Date
  • Medium
  • Dimensions
  • Description (if necessary)

You are free to provide multiple descriptions for different images/views/details if your work is complicated enough to necessitate this.

2. Still images, in jpeg format, with a minimum size of 2400px in the longest dimension. (Example: 6”x8”@ 300dpi = 1800px x 2400px.) Larger is fine, too. Please label your images as follows:

  • lastname_firstname_image01.jpg
  • lastname_firstname_image02.jpg
  • lastname_firstname_image03.jpg
  • etc.

Optional

3. Document your work with video, if you feel it is necessary to fully represent your work to a stranger. Videos should be in .mov format, preferably compressed in H.264 codec format.
Keep file sizes under 1GB, please!

Submission
We will be using UW’s Box service this semester for handing in documentation. You should have all received a link to a shared folder with me. Please place your documentation in a folder with your name on it inside the shared folder. Again, all documentation due one week after crit, by midnight. Anything after this deadline will be considered late.

Useful Links
BOX: https://uwmadison.app.box.com/login
MERIT: http://merit.education.wisc.edu/Equipment/CirculatingEquipment.aspx

Assignments

Long-Term Projects

Personal Research Assignment: Due 2/24

Research artists that interest you at present moment. Prepare to share images and detailed information about your artists’ work in a 10-15 minute oral slide presentation. You are welcome to choose artists from Harrington’s paper, my slide lecture references, or any other artists, provided that they interest you and have some bearing on your relationship with glass. You are also free to research one artist in depth or several artists in less-depth. You will be evaluated on whether you are able to convey what interests you about the artists work (how they work, how they think, how they make, and how they move between these different areas of art practice). In addition to your presentation, have prepared one digital image you find representative of the artists work.

 

Data Gathering Exercise: Due 2/24

Collect data and information on a subject matter that fascinates you. (Language, astronomy, wind, urban history, The Beatles, what have you . . . this does not have to be related to glass at all.) Fixate, at this stage, on the information and data; not where it will lead. Your fascination should be palpable in its thoroughness and your enthusiasm. Think contagion. Be prepared to share this information. This does not have to be as formal a presentation; this can be a looser amassing and sharing of information in various forms and/or modes of communication.

 

 Project 1: Due Wed., March 12

Develop a project that builds its form/experience from a source of data. Consider the ways in which “glass” relates to information through: shape, proportion, interior reflection, how it is sourced, phenomenon, etc.) Your work will be evaluated on conceptual development (from data to form), technical execution, and evidence of studio research. This work should grow directly out of your Data Gathering Exercise.

 

Mapping Assignment Heads-Up: Due after midterm — this information just provided as a heads-up/fyi as to what’s coming and what this is all leading up to.

Create a visualization of “glass” (glass as an area of activity/the field of glass/contemporary glass practice) as it is relevant to your studio practice. You may use Jerome Harrington’s work as a starting point, but I would strongly encourage you to define parameters that are relevant specifically to your interests in your studio practice. Look to the questions Harrington raises in his “note to the reader,” specifically:

How do you describe what you do?

What would your answer be (to the question of “what is glass?”)?

Where would you position your work on the diagram?
(and by extention, how would your personal diagram differ?)

You are free to be as inventive with this mapping as you wish. You may stick with your own references, pull from those from your classmates, Harrington’s paper, or my lecture references. You may insert your own work and/or your classmates work from the midterm crit into this map. You may include things outside the realm of art. Make a map that fits your practice.

This is not a casual assignment; your map should be evidence of a deep-dive into what pushes/inspires/interest you, as well as evidence of iterations and critical thought development. Last-minute, hand-scrawled diagrams on the most convenient piece of paper that happens to be lying around will warrant a D.

 

 

Assignments

Week 3: Punties and Cane Pulling

Make and document 20 consecutive punties.

Do one cane pull during your slot if you did not do one in class (most of you). Chop cane into ladder-lengths and store in classroom. Do not cut down any further at this point. We will all share our cane. There are 8 or so chunks of white and black leftover from class in the Y5 color box. There are also a few chunks left on the coldshop table. Please manage the color box during your slots and make sure it is not left on when you leave. Keep in mind beginners are still not trained on the GB4s.

A few tips:

  • Pulls usually work best if you never let things get too cold.
  • The stiff white/black really requires the color be exposed/touching the metal on both posts. If you see a sliver or hunk of clear between your color and the posts, chill aggressively by dunking the bottom 1/2″ – 1″ in the block bucket or using the squeezie bottles to chill the end closer to you.
  • Stick a pair of tweezers in your butt pocket before you get pulling. If you need two pairs, don’t just steal the pair off the other bench if someone is working; grab a crappy pair from the tool reject area.
  • The hand orientation is really nice to get down. There are lots of other ways of attaching your cane post, but I really find this to be the smoothest. When your set-up is hot, point your cane set-up down vertically, flip your hands so both hands are holding the pipe thumbs up (as though you were going to swing it), shimmy your hands down as far as possible towards the hot part of the pipe. Let go with your right hand and grab the post your partner prepared (which should be post-side up), again grabbing the pipe as close to the warm area as possible. Lift your left hand with the post up high enough to secure the bottom onto the post. Once secured, really yank with the left arm UP to get the diameter you want on that colder end. Pass that off to your partner and walk with the hot end at the speed you desire. (Left/right here can change here, but just for the sake of instruction it’s helpful to start somewhere.)
Assignments

Week 2: Cups and silhouette

For Monday, 2/10:
Practice your basic cup sequence. Bring in all attempts and pick your one best cup. Qiang and Jenna: practice your pulled cups, focusing on comments from the first class.

Pick one of the X’ed silhouette drawings and troubleshoot it in the hotshop. Save all attempts. Also save your cutout. There are two pieces of Randall’s black construction paper on the bulletin board to make it easier to see. Some of you may want to consider making your pieces solid in some cases if applicable. Keeping your silhouette cutout at your bench while working for reference. Use calipers when necessary.

I had mentioned practicing punties in class, but we didn’t get to it in class, so don’t worry about this for this week!