Ceramic Flowers

Installation Day is a really exciting day for the flower project. Everyone in all three classes come together and we lay out all the flowers that were made that semester. We start making decisions about composition. What do we want the viewer to get out of these pieces, how do we incorporate these flowers with previous semesters flowers. How do we make them easy for people to view for those who are walking down the pathway and the stairs and what looks best in terms of shape and color. There are a lot of decisions that have to be made with a large group of people. We try many different compositions until everyone is satisfied.

Students were inspired by the installation art project by ceramic artist Tom Cummins and Designer Tom Piper that included over 850,00 ceramic poppies that represented soldiers who died in WWI. The poppies were temporarily installed at the Tower of London. We wanted to plant ceramic flowers at Ohlone’s campus to welcome people back to campus after the pandemic. The students were taking their ceramics class over zoom and received special permission to come to campus to install the flowers. Instead of the flowers being a temporary installation there was a strong push for us to continue to add to the public art piece each semester. The first semester we installed flowers was the Spring of 2021. We thought everyone would be back in the Fall but with the next wave of covid, that was not the case. The students explored different ways to approach the flower as a form from realistic to abstract. They were encouraged to keep to just two colors but some students needed more colors for their vision. Each semester of students learns from the past semester and they continue to push the clay in new and exciting directions.

A little about the flowers The flowers get more and more exciting each semester. Each semester the students go out and look at what the previous semester students have created and they see what excites them whether it’s the color, the designs, or concept. That student is either a returning student who wants to do even better than they did the last semester or it’s their first time and they want to engage with the work that is already there and introduce work that is new and exciting. So we see work that is inspired by what is in someone’s garden but we also see work is really about pop culture and incorporating food or a cup as a flower or an abstract chain.

After getting feedback on how I could make a branch, I decided to go for it and see what happened. I made a plan for assembling a main branch with the hole and smaller branches to attach the actual flowers. After assembling that using coils, I rolled a branch on the clay to give it natural texture. Then I wrapped it in plastic. I made petals for the dogwood flowers and set those aside in plastic. Then I went back and added the tiny inner beads using wet slip and scoring. When all the flowers were done, I scored and slipped the flowers to the branches as they dried out. I had to work around the piece as it dried at different rates and I had to balance getting the flowers on without being too heavy for the structure of the branch. I really like having the flowers on campus. I was a little surprised when I first saw it in the syllabus because I didn't think a beginner's class would be able to make art that was "good enough" for an art installation. I'm glad I was wrong - I learned a lot just by seeing what other people in our class made and I was really happy we got to challenge ourselves and each other with this project.

I'm extremely happy with how it came out and felt even more happier seeing it displayed alongside so many incredible flowers! This was such a fun project and hope I’ll be able to make more since I felt really inspired after seeing everyone else's interpretation of flowers on Thursday. I would hope the flower display would stay on campus forever since it adds so much life and everyone could enjoy it.

The inspiration came from Georgia O'keefe, one of my favorite artists. She is known for her oversized flowers. I've seen a few other exhibitions and I am always very moved by her paintings. In her paintings small flowers (lilies, poppies etc.) become extremely beautiful and powerful. When I heard the flower assignment, my first reaction was to make Georgia O’Keefe flowers.

The shape for my first set of flowers were from flowers I saw in our backyard (tulips, California poppy and dandelion weeds). The next set I used the mini tart pan to have the scallop edges. I used a strainer, popsicle stick and rubber sculpting tool to create texture to the top of the flowers. The tulip color was a mixture of red and orange, poppy was also orange with red tips, and the dandelion is green and orange. Those colors are bright and cheerful.