Marysa Gunter, Student Work, Ceramic Sculpture II

Low fire ceramic, underglaze, wood. 

 

Ruth Coffman, Student Work, Ceramic Sculpture II

Glazed Ceramic, Wood

Wood Platform measures 20" x 18" x 8"

Assignment: Platform

Glazed Ceramic, Water

10" x 4" x 6"

Assignment: Personal Project

 

Bradley Edmonds, Student Work

Ceramic with Underglaze. Plastic flora and glass gems. 

Assignment: Personal Project

 

Jessica Lubbers, Student Work, Ceramic Sculpture II

Ceramic with glaze and underglaze. 

26" x 20" x 8"

Assignment: Personal Project

Ceramic with glaze placed on crochet yarn. 

23" x 19" x 5"

Assignment: Platform

Ceramic and Glaze (five separate pieces).

15" x 15" x 12"

Assignment: Personal Project

Glazed ceramic and yarn.

Assignment: Personal Project

 

Conrad Kane, Student Work, Ceramic Sculpture II

Unfired Earthenware, Wood

38" x 50" x 30"

 

Laura Towne, Student Work, Ceramic Sculpture II

Darwin

Low fire, underglaze and glaze

Approximately 12 inches tall with smaller surrounding ceramic forms.

Charles Darwin is best known for his contribution to the theory of evolution. Most people are unaware of the relationship between Darwin and the Wedgwood family. Josiah Wedgwood was born in 1730. He was an artist, entrepreneur, and abolitionist. In 1759 he established the, ultimately very successful, Wedgwood ceramics company. In 1839 Charles Darwin married Josiah’s granddaughter, Emma Wedgwood. The Wedgwood money financed Darwin’s research. 

I find this connection between Darwin’s theories and clay production most interesting as several recent scientific articles have discussed the probability of the role of clay in providing a structured environment that allowed for the birth of proteins and ultimately DNA. A couple of these articles include Before Cells, Biochemicals May Have Combined in Clay by author Bill Steele found in the Cornell Chronicles and Clays and the Origin of Life: The Experiments by authors Jacob Teunis Kloprogge and Hyman Hartman found in the journal Life. 

My ceramic sculpture was designed to visually marry the scientific work of Charles Darwin with the Wedgwood fortune that financed it. The bust is presented as a piece of Jasperware, a style of ceramics created by Josiah Wedgewood that used a matte blue glaze reminiscent of “robin’s egg blue” with white cameo-like structures affixed to the surface. These raised structures illustrate both the story of evolution and some of the decorative embellishments that the Wedgwood’s might have used on their Jasperware. The smaller pieces surrounding the bust depict the creatures that were discovered during Darwin’s expedition to the Galapagos Islands.

In Process