A Catalytic Process

This summer at Interlochen I challenged myself to create a sculpture at camp for the Faculty/Staff Exhibition. Since the exhibition is about 2 weeks from when I arrive at camp it is recommended that faculty bring work to exhibit and I usually do. This summer, however, I had to fly from North Carolina to Michigan and decided I'd use that inconvenience to push myself into creating a new piece.  

I decided to combine my two interests in clay and metal. I also wanted to make something funny and lighthearted and wacky. Inspiration for this sculpture was of a friend and his love of taking pictures of his cats. I didn't use a photo of the dude, but used my mind's eye.

The clay was worked super quick and I managed to take some process shots with my LG G2. This smartphone utilizes Google + to automatically back up my photos on a cloud. This is super handy! For this blog post I was able to transfer these photos directly from the cloud, instead of downloading them to my computer and then back up into the internet. I hope to do more blog posts from now on, because of this.

Day 2

Day 3 or 4. Never sculpted a cat before.

Dude's face is mostly figured out, now working on the feline.

I started looking at cat photos online. 

Gave some texture to the whiskers...dude's and cat's.

On the back I added a mystical aura design. 

Now that the clay is drying I can work on a base. This is a Torchmate CNC plasma torch cutting out the mystical aura design into sheets of steel.

I kinda wish this was the piece, it is so funny with the cat freaking out about going into the kiln.

Kate Plows petting the kitty.

Skipped a few processes, due to being super busy. Each side was TIG welded together and painted with a Hammered Texture paint. Also this is a bit out of order because this was exhibited as greenware.

I know its not a studio photo. 

Not bad for a couple of weeks. I still might give the head a simple glaze, but since I left it at camp I'll cross that bridge next summer.

The Catalyst

Painted Steel and Greenware

6 ft x 2ft x 2ft