Theatrical Photos
November 17, 2009
Beautifully Horrific Teeth
October 15, 2009
Best day ever! Except for maybe yesterday, which was the most productive day ever. Every now and then the stars align and I love my life… First:
There were boxes and boxes full of these; I just took what I could comfortably carry and the shapes that I was most interested in, but there were tons more! They all came from Harvard’s Recycling Center, which sort of makes me worry about what was in them before they abandoned all of them… lots of them reeked of alcohol so I’m leaning towards some sort of organic, probably dead, material. Either way, these definitely weren’t filled with jam so I intend to thoroughly sterilize them. Next…

He sterilizes them and then drops them into these alcohol filled jars so they don't dry out and become brittle
So let’s see, tons of gorgeous canning jars, recently emptied of organic materials, previously filled with alcohol AND 9 beautiful live teeth samples in the same day… coincidence? I think not. Clearly these things are meant to go together…
Oh! And I just got 3 pounds of paraffin wax from Seaport Candle downstairs for cheap. They have a beautiful studio on the first floor of the building so I just ran down, chatted for a minute, and ran back up with brand new wax in hand! No expensive shipping, no overpriced art supply shops, no dragging heavy wax on public transportation. Yesterday I visited the lumber yard, Robert N. Karpp, that’s not even a block away and dragged a 4’x8′ sheet of 1/2“ plywood to the apartment by myself—awesome! I could go on and on about all the other fabulous things that have been accomplished in the last two days, and how thrilled I am by my new apartment and its location, but I won’t bore you. I will just leave you with this, the view out our 4th floor window overlooking the industrial section of Southie at night…

I know you can't really tell, but there's a fabulous crane parking lot right behind the big white building
And sometimes an especially brightly lit cruise ship pulls up and lights up the whole area in blue light… cool…
Vestigial Organs: Teeth Stories and Sculptures
October 12, 2009
Finally came up with a name for my show! I submitted the design for my postcards and had to invent a title to put on the cards so there you have it. I hate making up titles. Half the time I end up just throwing something random together; sometimes it works, sometimes not so much. This might be one of those not working times, but the title is slowly growing on me so we’ll see what I think by the time the show rolls around.
Making the postcards meant I had to finally set up my studio corner in the new apartment. In addition to finishing a few teeth, I had to assemble some sort of photography booth. I took a few pics of my corner and the crazy contraption I put together for the sake of taking a few nice photos…
And lastly, here was the second favorite postcard photo. It’s a tiny version what’s to come in the next few weeks and at the show on November 1st.
Waxed Teeth
June 20, 2009
Now time for some waxed teeth!

I've been experimenting with watercoloring the teeth, then dipping them in a crockpot full of "clear" beeswax

I say "clear" because it's really not clear, it's a bit cloudy so the more times you dip the piece, the more subtle the color becomes

There's also a really interesting difference between watercoloring on bisqueware (fired to cone 06 and therefore VERY porous)

And also if you dip the piece in the wax when the watercolor is still wet, vs. dipping it after the color is completely dry
There’s a couple more that aren’t represented here, mostly because they were without watercolor–just bare porcelain dipped in wax. Most likely when it comes time to do the actual installation of the “dreamcatcher”, I will only use bare porcelain + wax and skip the watercolor step. I do like the effect of the watercolor, but I think when there is 100+ of them, it will just be overwhelming and confusing if they are all watercolored. I’d rather keep it clean and simple. So for now, the watercolor will only happen on a select few and maybe on future sculptural teeth that are separate from the “dreamcatcher” installation. Just for the purposes of experimenting, I recently fired a couple teeth to cone 6, something inbetween 06 and 10 to see how that temperature takes the watercolor. I’ll probably post those in the next week or so for comparison… Plus they will be out of an oxidation kiln instead of reduction so that will also cause some variation in the overall tone of the porcelain. Stay tuned for more fun with porcelain, slip-casting, teeth and wax!