titles peep to reality

we wood fired these totem poles to r7 (1240) which was basically a 13 hour firing without glazes or any inputs. although we planed the entire firing on the basis of three other 13 hour, soda and glaze wood-firing; with 2 major reductions, we still obtained no wood-firing characteristics on our work. there were no ash deposits either although we had placed some ash pockets on the bag walls and some between the pieces themselves.
since we had placed no peep hole in the back wall of the kiln, we achieved our temperature quite efficiently and steadily as there was no heat loss from the back, brick wall at all.
the reason we used no inputs and we only went up to r7 was that the clay we used gave us very diverse results in 5 different firings (gas and wood fire). my clay body was either perfectly fine or it was cracking up or totally melting in different firings that went to the same temperature. i also tried placing them in the same positions on the same shelves in an attempt to try to ascertain possible reasons for the diverse results. others had similar issues, however even at r7 another colleague's totems warped although her clay tests were perfect through out.


In the end, my totems preformed a through and through cracking performance and they still remained un-vitrified.
However the natural cracks are beautiful. They make me think of how naturally the fire made my work speak of my thoughts and of my concept. it is amazing to equate the cracks- a sign of weakness, to all the corruption and lies of our government and how they have weakened our county's internal structure. And the fact that all my pieces resisted any fire flashes, makes me think, no matter how hard one may try to cloak deception, it cannot go unnoticed.

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Totem of lies

The concept of totem poles is either a standard of society or for spiritual purposes. My concept stems from lies.

Lies that have become such a fundamental part of the government of our country, that we have become numb to their existence. They have become the standard of our government in my mind.

I wanted to represent the lies that our government feeds us which seem to go round and round in circles constantly toying away with the laws; sometimes we becomes so ritualized and desensitized that they get an opportunity to merge into the system and sometimes they are so apparent and oppressive that their existences seems to overpower the system and those who rebel against it.

The displacement of discs talks about the disparity between the reality and the fabrications that blind us. Although their displacement should throw the totem pole out of balance but it does not. The same goes for our system, at least up till now… for how long...that is a question one needs to ponder upon

This assignment made me observe the technicalities of vertical building. I had to consider gravity, balance and height. Apart from these I also had to make sure that all the discs would inter relate through their diameters and wall thicknesses.

Apart from the physics of the piece I deliberately made textures where they either merge into the structure, become forced or artificial or become the structure. These in a way do signify the nitty gritty details through which the government toys around with the system which might be claimed as strong but is nothing but hollowed by the 'lie termite'

This was an assignment that was very physically exhaustive but was a great learning experience because I usually did not consider factors such as weight, balance and gravity.

Since the entire structure is thrown, throwing such huge pieces was another challenge and making more pieces, playing around with thicknesses but replicating diameters was also another interesting process.

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