BFA Show Plan
Since my BFA show is just around the corner, this week I figured I’d share some of what I’ve been working on as well as my ideas for installing the show.
In the gallery space, I want the viewer to feel like they are being welcomed into my home. When you first walk in the room, you will notice a long rectangular “dining room table”. This is going to be an older, traditional wood table that will have 4 wood chairs sitting around it. At each spot there will be a place setting. I plan to have 4 ceramic plates that I made with lavender and sage impressions pressed into the center. The lavender and sage is from my garden at the house I currently live in. I will also have glasses and silverware that are going to be from my house that I live in as well. In the center there will be a table runner that my mom has always used at the table in the house I grew up in. In the center of the table there will also be a ceramic pitcher to hold a drink, a ceramic vase that will have dried wildflowers I will forage from my family’s farm, and a dried gourd I got from my mom that I will be printing on with a linoleum block that I carved. I also plan to have some type of cloth napkins that I may fold in a certain way.
The second part of the exhibition will be on the right side of the gallery space. On this side I am going to have a display of some of my ceramic work as well as prints hanging on the wall. I have 5 ceramic wall pieces that have the numbers of the houses I have lived in with my family, including our farm house. These wall pieces are decorated with porcelain slip and using sgraffito as I had explained in a previous blog post. They have imagery of plants or flowers that relate to the place. I also have plain white wall pieces that are decorated with decals. My decals are hand drawn images that are printed onto decal paper and fired onto my wall pieces. Along with the ceramic pieces, I am going to have a couple screenprints and intaglio prints. So far, I have an intaglio print that has my dog in it I want to display. I have an intaglio/screenprint layered piece of my mom’s hot sauce recipe I’ll be including, and I have a 4 color screenprint of a sign from a place my family used to go blueberry picking. I still want to create a couple more prints to have hanging up.
Aside from the art itself, I will also have a food table. This table is going to include some pottery I’ve made that will hold dishes that are important to my family or that are a family tradition. This part of the show will help tie in the food to the art which is my favorite thing about making ceramic things. I like to cook a lot at home and recreate meals I’ve had at restaurants as well as tie in old family recipes to new things I make. When I cook a meal I always serve it on my ceramic plates or bowls I’ve made, so I think this aspect of it will just pull the whole show together.
So this is my plan so far and I’ve got a couple images of what I have done so far. I’m so excited to see this installation and can’t wait to get everything done!
