Three stinking coasters
So I've been taking this pottery class through Minneapolis Community Ed. It's held at Southwest High School. The class started out seeming like it would be pretty cool, but it quickly devolved to the point that tonight's class (the last session) was an f'ing joke.
First off, it appears at times that our instructor doesn't really know what she's doing. There have been more than a few occasions when someone will ask her a question, and get one answer. Then, realizing she doesn't know for sure, the instructor asks the advice of the High School art teacher (who's been hanging around all night because he's a super territorial weirdo who's extremely protective of his classroom) who gives a different answer. So we never know if she's giving good suggestions or not.
Then, these last 2 class periods, the level of disorganization reached it's absolute peak. Before we can glaze our pieces, they need to be bisque fired. Then we can glaze them, and then they get fired again. Well, we were told that the last 2 class periods would be devoted to glazing only, meaning that all of our pieces needed to be bisque fired before then. Well, only about half of them got fired. Some of us (myself included) didn't have any of our pieces fired for last weeks class, so we had nothing to do last class. So it was a wasted class period, and I left early.
This week, their were still pieces that weren't bisque fired. But thankfully mine had been fired over the weekend, and I had picked them up after work yesterday so I could work on them at home. So I gave them a coat of underglaze at home last night, which should have meant that in today's class all I needed to do was apply a coat of clear glaze and I would be able to leave early again.
Ah, what a great plan. If only it had worked out. I asked the instructor if I could put a coat of clear glaze over my underglaze, and she said "Sure" and recommended that I apply it with a brush rather than dipping them. I applied a few brush strokes of clear glaze to one piece, and the underglaze began to run. Fuck. In retrospect, this shouldn't have been a big surprise, both the underglaze and clear glaze are water-based, but I made the stupid mistake of assuming she was giving me good advice. So I had to wash all the glaze and underglaze off that piece, and apply the underglaze all over again. Which is time consuming, involving multiple coats, etc. Since we only have one firing left, this means they just won't get a clear coat, which totally sucks. The clear coat would make them bright and shiny - without it they will be dull.
Oh, and did I mention that the instructor rarely had decent tools available for us to use? Today was (as I mentioned) one of the two days dedicated to glazing, and as class begins another student asks the instructor if she has brushes for us to use. The response ... "I don't know." What do you mean, you don't know? This is your stinking class!?! So she runs around for 5, 10 minutes scrambling to see where in the school she can get some brushes for us to use, since super-territorial-weirdo high school teacher won't let us use his. Unacceptable, even for a low-budget community ed class, in my humble opinion.
Oh, and while I'm ranting, I might as well bitch about myself and how I accomplished almost nothing in these classes relative to most of the other students. I was slow to decide what I wanted to do for projects, so I spent one class making a crappy bowl using the "coil" method. I just wanted to practice technique, so that's what I did. I had no intention of keeping the bowl, and I didn't. Then, I missed a class when I went up north snowboarding at Lutsen. Then, the instructor failed to tell us that the last 2 entire classes were for glazing only, so I (and several others) were scrambling to complete a project before the glazing sessions started. I decided I wanted to make a set of 4 coasters in the shape of sunflowers. So I did that, but it took longer than expected and I only got 3 done. I started on the 4th, and took it home to finish it. But when I brought it back to class, it fell out my bag onto the floor and got trashed, leaving me with only 3. So in the end, all I'll have to show for this class are 3 stinking sunflower coasters that will look dull and lifeless since they have underglaze but no clear coat. That's assuming our instructor gets her shit together and actually gets all of our stuff fired. Grrr. In the end they'll probably look like crap, and I'll just get pissed and rifle them out my window like some kind of stoneware throwing stars.
But I should say that I've really enjoyed spending time in that art room. There's a chaotic energy brewing amongst the organized clutter in that room. The super territorial weirdo high School art teacher is also a track and field coach, so the room is a mish-mash of creative, half-completed high school art projects and track and field articles, photos, etc. It's an interesting and stimulating blend.
Also, just to make this post a little more even-handed, I should add that not all Community Ed classes suck. The Intro Spanish course I took through Comm Ed a year ago was actually pretty good (even though I really didn't retain anything I learned...) The instructor was very organized, and covered pretty much all that he could in the 8 or so class periods he had to work with.
First off, it appears at times that our instructor doesn't really know what she's doing. There have been more than a few occasions when someone will ask her a question, and get one answer. Then, realizing she doesn't know for sure, the instructor asks the advice of the High School art teacher (who's been hanging around all night because he's a super territorial weirdo who's extremely protective of his classroom) who gives a different answer. So we never know if she's giving good suggestions or not.
Then, these last 2 class periods, the level of disorganization reached it's absolute peak. Before we can glaze our pieces, they need to be bisque fired. Then we can glaze them, and then they get fired again. Well, we were told that the last 2 class periods would be devoted to glazing only, meaning that all of our pieces needed to be bisque fired before then. Well, only about half of them got fired. Some of us (myself included) didn't have any of our pieces fired for last weeks class, so we had nothing to do last class. So it was a wasted class period, and I left early.
This week, their were still pieces that weren't bisque fired. But thankfully mine had been fired over the weekend, and I had picked them up after work yesterday so I could work on them at home. So I gave them a coat of underglaze at home last night, which should have meant that in today's class all I needed to do was apply a coat of clear glaze and I would be able to leave early again.
Ah, what a great plan. If only it had worked out. I asked the instructor if I could put a coat of clear glaze over my underglaze, and she said "Sure" and recommended that I apply it with a brush rather than dipping them. I applied a few brush strokes of clear glaze to one piece, and the underglaze began to run. Fuck. In retrospect, this shouldn't have been a big surprise, both the underglaze and clear glaze are water-based, but I made the stupid mistake of assuming she was giving me good advice. So I had to wash all the glaze and underglaze off that piece, and apply the underglaze all over again. Which is time consuming, involving multiple coats, etc. Since we only have one firing left, this means they just won't get a clear coat, which totally sucks. The clear coat would make them bright and shiny - without it they will be dull.
Oh, and did I mention that the instructor rarely had decent tools available for us to use? Today was (as I mentioned) one of the two days dedicated to glazing, and as class begins another student asks the instructor if she has brushes for us to use. The response ... "I don't know." What do you mean, you don't know? This is your stinking class!?! So she runs around for 5, 10 minutes scrambling to see where in the school she can get some brushes for us to use, since super-territorial-weirdo high school teacher won't let us use his. Unacceptable, even for a low-budget community ed class, in my humble opinion.
Oh, and while I'm ranting, I might as well bitch about myself and how I accomplished almost nothing in these classes relative to most of the other students. I was slow to decide what I wanted to do for projects, so I spent one class making a crappy bowl using the "coil" method. I just wanted to practice technique, so that's what I did. I had no intention of keeping the bowl, and I didn't. Then, I missed a class when I went up north snowboarding at Lutsen. Then, the instructor failed to tell us that the last 2 entire classes were for glazing only, so I (and several others) were scrambling to complete a project before the glazing sessions started. I decided I wanted to make a set of 4 coasters in the shape of sunflowers. So I did that, but it took longer than expected and I only got 3 done. I started on the 4th, and took it home to finish it. But when I brought it back to class, it fell out my bag onto the floor and got trashed, leaving me with only 3. So in the end, all I'll have to show for this class are 3 stinking sunflower coasters that will look dull and lifeless since they have underglaze but no clear coat. That's assuming our instructor gets her shit together and actually gets all of our stuff fired. Grrr. In the end they'll probably look like crap, and I'll just get pissed and rifle them out my window like some kind of stoneware throwing stars.
But I should say that I've really enjoyed spending time in that art room. There's a chaotic energy brewing amongst the organized clutter in that room. The super territorial weirdo high School art teacher is also a track and field coach, so the room is a mish-mash of creative, half-completed high school art projects and track and field articles, photos, etc. It's an interesting and stimulating blend.
Also, just to make this post a little more even-handed, I should add that not all Community Ed classes suck. The Intro Spanish course I took through Comm Ed a year ago was actually pretty good (even though I really didn't retain anything I learned...) The instructor was very organized, and covered pretty much all that he could in the 8 or so class periods he had to work with.
posted by equipoise at 9:27 PM
1 Comments:
It's all the big parties he has over there. He needs *something* for the beers to sit on :)
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