Today is bitter sweet. I know I have made friendships here that will last, and learned things that will help me along in my work. I am excited to come home and see everyone and especially Matt, but that also means I have to leave here. I can't believe its already over. This has been one of the Top ten experiences of my life I can easily say that. I hope that next year someone new is given this opportunity again. I'm not sure what I need to do to make that happen for someone, but gosh darn if I'm not going to do it. To all of those who sent me here: You have blessed me more than I could have imagined before I left. To be a Pilchuck alumni means alot, and I hope to bring the quality of life from here home. Thank you all so much. Please feel free to e-mail me. I am going off the grid for a few days when I get home for a vacation with my husband, but I would love to hear from everyone. Thank you again, and here ends my blog from my first session at Pilchuck.
Shellie Hoak
Friday, August 13, 2010
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Wednesday
Now its starting to feel weird. I can't believe this session is coming to an end, if it weren't for my husband I would never want to come home. Hopefully I will find my way back here one day. Tomorrow we clean up the shop and ship our works home. I look forward to showing my pieces back home. The installations went well, and I plan on putting up lots of pictures the minute I sink my toes back in Florida sand. This has been an amazing journey.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Tuesday
Today is coming to and end, as well as the session. Our pieces came out of the kiln but wont be ready till tomorrow to get out of their molds. Hopefully we will have time to cold work them to get them finished up. I set up a few pieces today for the critique tomorrow, and tonight have a tea party with a few friends. Its almost two late but who knows when I will see these guys again.
Monday
Sorry everyone I forgot to title the last post, it was for sat and sun. I wish I had more to report but yesterday was just cold working and drawing. There was a nice event that went on in the Lodge last night though. Our visiting artist Paul Rucker played sculptures. We were given an amount of clay and were allowed to play with it and make anything we so desired. Once we were done he played our sculptures on his chello. The rest of my pieces come out of the kiln today and hopefull will be cold worked soon! and ready to go. Here is a picture of the flat shop, This is where we do all our drawing, planning, meetings and such.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Good Morning, or afternoon I guess depending on where you are. Today is update day. We are now in the home stretch before returning to the warm waters of Florida. It was a pretty miserable weekend as far as weather goes but I guess I got a real taste of what Washington is known for. The weekends are slower days, and much needed slower days. All of my pieces have been cast, some are coming out today and some are coming out tomorrow. Now it is just going to be a race against the clock to get them all cold worked before I come back into town.... or Wink Wink if I don't Ringling will get some waterproof tools Wink* So far life is still great. I still rarely see Mark past dinner time, and we are all convinced that were going to starve when we get home because no one will ring a bell to let us know we need to eat haha. But back to Mark, He has been doing mostly kiln forming (fusing strips of glass together to create interesting imagery), but he also had some of his molds sent to him and has been working with I believe slumping faces. I'm really interested to see what comes out of that experiment. My casting experiment comes out of the annealer this morning. I made a relief mold out of plaster instead of sand and kept it to a small 2" thickness at most. I think bubbles are going to be a problem but who knows maybe they settled in the annealer. Today is going to be a good day. Most of it will be spent cold working but I also have a drawing that I will be taking breaks to work on. Homes for the invisible people... that is a much longer story that you would have to ask me in person ha. I'm not great at taking pictures but I'm going to steal some off facebook from friends here to pass on great memories to yall. Pictures of my work so far will be coming soon, but I have to say I have never worked with glass so you will have to cut me some slack (wink). Until tomorrow, I hope you all had a wonderful weekend as well.
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Thursday/ Friday
Hello again,
I feel like my blogging is getting farther and farther apart... but I say we take this as a good thing, pilchuck is keeping me busy. I have a few more pictures up courtesy of my friend Cydney. Its a good jumping off point to talk about the car kiln. The picture of my class huddled around the table is our game plan. The car kiln needs to be poured fast and quickly pushed back into place. This was our chance to make some thicker pieces because of annealing time. The woman in charge is my teacher Brynhildir. The next picture of the whole crew is my entire class getting ready to put all our rehearsals into motion. There was four people ladling at the same time, almost like a glass dance. a few of us were ladle planners, and just needed to make sure we handed the right ladle to our guy when he needed it. Others cut glass, and opened the furnace and kiln doors. The picture of the glowing molds is one of our TA's Alex pouring the final mold before it is pushed back into the kiln. The last picture was just a wonderful dose of puppy haha. A couple showed up to campus with I would say 5 or 6 puppies so all of us missing our pets could have some unconditional love. This is an amazing place, and I cant imagine there being anything like it anywhere else. Everyone is motivated, works hard, is trusting... its a little slice of heaven in the woods. I have one more weeks here. At this point all of my pieces have been poured. I am just waiting for them to come out of the annealer to start cold working them. This is such an amazing experience. You meet people from all over. I now have friends from Canada, France, Iceland, Israel, japan, and many states. I have nothing negative to say about this place, and I'm currently very proud to be part of the pilchuck family. Thanks guys.
I feel like my blogging is getting farther and farther apart... but I say we take this as a good thing, pilchuck is keeping me busy. I have a few more pictures up courtesy of my friend Cydney. Its a good jumping off point to talk about the car kiln. The picture of my class huddled around the table is our game plan. The car kiln needs to be poured fast and quickly pushed back into place. This was our chance to make some thicker pieces because of annealing time. The woman in charge is my teacher Brynhildir. The next picture of the whole crew is my entire class getting ready to put all our rehearsals into motion. There was four people ladling at the same time, almost like a glass dance. a few of us were ladle planners, and just needed to make sure we handed the right ladle to our guy when he needed it. Others cut glass, and opened the furnace and kiln doors. The picture of the glowing molds is one of our TA's Alex pouring the final mold before it is pushed back into the kiln. The last picture was just a wonderful dose of puppy haha. A couple showed up to campus with I would say 5 or 6 puppies so all of us missing our pets could have some unconditional love. This is an amazing place, and I cant imagine there being anything like it anywhere else. Everyone is motivated, works hard, is trusting... its a little slice of heaven in the woods. I have one more weeks here. At this point all of my pieces have been poured. I am just waiting for them to come out of the annealer to start cold working them. This is such an amazing experience. You meet people from all over. I now have friends from Canada, France, Iceland, Israel, japan, and many states. I have nothing negative to say about this place, and I'm currently very proud to be part of the pilchuck family. Thanks guys.
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