Yong Chung Visits Lane Tech

We had a day of great demonstrations by Yong Chung, our first visiting artist of the year. He shared a wealth of tips for learning the basics of throwing on the wheel and surface texturing. He talked to the students about his experiences learning ceramics in Korea, then at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His functional pottery, stacked vessels, and installations were very inspiring. Thanks, Yong, for an amazing day at Lane!

Spirit Day

Kiln-Baked Pizza

Here are Jessica, Tanzy, Breanna, Sabrina, & Ash w/their proud creations. We made the dough yesterday and baked over 100 pizzas in the kiln today!

Jay Strommen's Wood-Firing Workshop

Next weekend, we are going to camp in Galena & stoke the wood kiln there for a few days. I can't wait to mix the adobe and put the kiln together and stay up chatting in front of the fire all night. This is a picture of Jay visiting Lane to show his master potter skills & to tell students about the wood firing tradition.

Momoko Usami Visits Lane Tech

Momoko Usami is an artist from Japan who is currently the ceramic artist in residence at Lill Street Art Center. She showed the students her vast array of sculptures, pottery, and installations, and she demonstrated a really cool technique for painting images onto work by inlaying oxides into carvings she scratched through wax resist onto greenware. Her presentation was inspiring.

Snow Sculptures 2010

Here are some pics of the two teams sculpting snow blocks in Grant Park last week. They hacked away for three days in below freezing temps & sub-zero wind chills. Congratulations to the teams for their amazing dedication & final sculptures:Izabela Feret, Tori Rogallo, Erick Madrigal, Marta Kondratowicz, Alicia Sheridan, Danielle Larsen, France La, Noemi Reyes, Marina Diaz, and Maricel Tabalba.

Raku Firing

Hundreds of students participated in our raku-a-thon this year, from 8am until midnight. AP Chemistry students joined us in making ceramic works & watching the amazing transformation of copper & crackle glazes in the post-firing reduction.

Egg Drop 2009

Right before winter break, we had our annual egg drop off stairway "D" at Lane, one of the only stairwells that goes up all four flights. This picture shows Joanne's design, which I'm pretty sure could sustain a helicopter drop from 1000 feet in the air. We threw it hard around the room, and there's no way to crack the egg in this contraption.

Pit Firing 2009

Here's a picture of students digging out the pit. We went on a fieldtrip to Dawn Soltysiak's studio and farm near South Haven, Michigan. She showed us how to do smoke and pit firings of the ceramic pieces we made in class. Pit firing is the most ancient form of turning clay into ceramic. It involves burying the pieces below ground and covering them with combustible materials and making a bonfire. There is no glaze used on the pieces, just natural materials like banana peels, straw, wood, and we even added dog food to get some vitamins and minerals to color the work. It rained all weekend, so it was a soggy adventure, but really, really fun.

Blindfolded at the Wheel

Here's a picture of the students today, trying to center & pull a cylinder without looking...