Everything and anything

My most favorite! I like the effect of white plum flower on blue glaze. The shape of the vase is cute too.

This one is a bit fat. It was really hard to make a bottle shape. But I like the glaze effect. It's like chinese landscape painting. I can experiment with this more...

I didn't make this. My instructor did, and he didn't want to trim it. So he gave it to me. I trimmed and glazed it. The color didn't turn out quite the way I wanted... Maybe one day I can make something like this

Results from Fall 2006. Much improved :))

some functional items first...

a couple cup - (one of them has a crack on the bottom. so I can't drink water with it)

couple bowl

a stationary holder -

New year! I haven't written any blog entry for a long time now. Working hard

Recently I took some studio shots with models. Very interesting. I didn't know what I was doing, and they were trying to help by bringing out their best.

Some of ones I like:

back of the room, tricky lighting

十一月的北国今年算是暖的，趁着阳光借着生日抓拍一番秋色。

红






黄






尚存的绿





枯

It's that time of the year again, cool wind, leaves changing color...

Taking advantage of the last bit of warm sunshine.

Got a piece of garden for $5, so I started my gardening adventure this summer. From working the soil in May, to planting tomato seeds at home, transplanting them to the field, getting rid of weeds, daily watering, waiting, worrying, exciting... Slowly the plants grew bigger and bigger. Small flowers came out, yellow and unimpressive. But then tomatoes showed up. Yeah!!! Now, it's time for enjoying the fruits of labor. They're delicious!

My mom spent two months caring the plants everyday. Though she left before the tomatos were turning red, they have become her proud achievements here. She gets very excited when I show the fruits to her through webcam. Laughs.

As my friend says, 'good things take time to grow.' One more thing for next year.

My garden

beans

my tomatoes! Yummy!!

something i have been thinking about from pottery:

1. small early successes. I remember my first and second pots. They came after a slew of frustrating failures. They are pretty bad, with my current standards, but I was very excited to have something in recognizable shape. I don't know about T. She seemed not to enjoy her early pots as much as I did with mine, although they were equally bad.

2.success breeds success. I also remember my first presentable pot, an ash tray. I remember how careful I was with the tray, afraid that I would destroy it if I had done more with it. I needed something not just in any shape, but a decent shape. The tray was that first decent shape. After I have a few decent ones (now no longer decent any more), I began to be relaxed about failure. I'm not afriad of destroying my pots with some experimentation. Instead of keeping every little piece, no matter how ugly, I'm fine with throwing away pots that have defects.

3. moderate expectation. There was a guy in the class who makes really nice pots. He was however saying that after a year not doing pottery, his technique has regressed. I said I'd be very happy if I can ever make a pot like his, in my lifetime. What determines happiness is not so much the quality of our products, but the gap with our expectation. I could be happier with a much worse pot than the guy because I wasn't aiming for what he considered a good pot. But I raise my bar with gradual progress. So maybe one day I can actually make something like his. (I'd be really really happy then.)

... maybe I can learn something from this, and apply to research, or career in general. But it's hard. Stakes are different. I try...

My pottery teacher is a young African-American artist. Using my friend's words, he always seems to have something on his mind. Jamil doesn't teach much. When he 'lectures', it's more joke than serious contents. He gives demonstration from time to time, and every time we were all so amazed at his magical hands. Then he likes to just go around the room and see each student at work. Sometimes he'd stop and help with the student in whatever problem s/he has. With whatever criteria he has, he spends his time unevenly among students. I, for whatever reason, doesn't get much of his time. So I try to work on my own.

With Jamil, the way I learn is of course through observing his demonstration. But he does that only occasionally. So I try to observe and listen when he corrects other students of their problems. From that, I learned how to fight a wobbling clay, make the walls distribute evenly- both were big problems I had. Another way is to watch other students. Many students are very good. I look at how they do, get some ideas from their pots. Everyone has some special technique. The fourth way is my own experimentation, trying to find the weakness in my own technique and improve it based on basic reasoning.

All of these learning happen slowly very time. Often times, I struggle with my pots not knowing what the cause is and how to deal with it. Then accidentally from random observation or eavesdropping I'd pick up some clues as to how to improve.

I don't know if this is a good learning mode. THe disadvantage is that it takes much time, and each 'a-ha' moment seems so random and accidental. If I hadn't heard somebody talk about it, I would haven't picked it up... It almost feeling like reinventing the wheel sometimes when I come up with solutions after weeks that could have been taught by the instructor in minutes. When I finally figure out something, it then becomes so obvious that I'm surprised that I didn't see it earlier. Like making the bottom, it was only in the last summer class that I figured it out from watching other students. My pots always looked strange on the bottom, but I never knew why.

Is there anything worthy of this learning mode? a possible advantage may be that the learning sticks. A longer problem-solving struggling period, supposedly, leads to more better memory of the technique once it's discovered. That being said, I'm not sure of it.

I'm not even sure that this learning mode is a good one. If other students can learn the techniques in minutes and make nicer pots in shorter period of time than I do, am I learning in an inefficient way?

And I puzzle about this for my grad school experience. There're different learning modes. Some have professors who do very detailed and hands-on 'teaching'. Some are more laid back, drop a few tips here and there, and see if the stduents can figure it out on their own, like Jamil. I don't know which is better.

Maybe I will get some hints when I have a different pottery instructor next semester. He's said to be very good at 'teaching'.

These are the last batch from summer, also my favorites. It feels great to wait for them to come out of the 'fire' - the wait, anxiety, hope, satisfaction, excitement. and of course when i 'show off' to friends

This green bowl, I like a lot. I finally figured out how to make the bottom. The teacher I had never taught us how to do it. My mom finally approves of my pot after seeing this bowl. She always softly criticized my previous bowls as 'clumsy and heavy.'

I like this vase the best. I like its shape, how the color turned out, and my experiments with the painting were very successful too. I had some trouble with the top. I wanted to close it even further. Still need to learn how to do that.

This bowl doesn't get much praise as the other two. But I like it a lot. I think I got the idea from Japanese restaurants. I wanted it in black and red, but there's no red glaze in the studio. It could be a soup bowl.

Goal for next semester: a set.

I haven't written anything for a while here. But I haven't been slacking off. My pottery work continued in the summer, with noticeable progress in skills :)

Here are some of the July pots.

I like the greenish color, and I like how the black gets into the yellow.and I like the shape too. The bottom of the right one had a hole when I made it. So i patched it with some more clay. Well, you can't see it

A bowl, i like the intersection of two colors.

a bowl, it has a nice shape.

This is smaller, but cute

a dish, should make it bigger

and a bigger bowl.It's quite difficult to make something bigger.

我做了一套碗碟，就叫阴阳式吧，或者叫日月式（好听些).

这是颜色最好的一个。

这是造型最好的一个。

还作了一个笔筒。虽然造型不是很好，颜色我很喜欢，是用上次试验出来的搭配。

一学期的课结束了，过一阵再开始。

This is my second batch from week 5. It takes so much waiting time, to glaze, to fire. I like the waiting though. A lot of suspense, wondering how they will turn out.

The deep bowl is in a sense experiment of color. I like the way the colors transitioned. I will use the color for a vase next time.

I like the blue vase-like pot very much. The color turned out very well. The shape is good too. The bottom is still too thick. I want to make another one with smaller opening.

This tiny thing is completely out of the shape. But I use it to experiment color. This time it turned out very nice. I love the way the red drops down into the white. (click the whole text to see picture)

This is my first patch of fully glazed pots. The first to the last from the bottom to the top. You can see that they get bigger each time, and a little more in regular shape.

The first is the candle holder. Second one, I haven't figured out what it is yet. Third one is an ash tray. I already gave it to my uncle as a gift. The forth one is a plate. I messed up the color, but it turned out okay.

上周我终于拿回了第一批烧好的瓷器，闪闪发光呢。我的东倒西歪的小烛台，底座过于厚实的小碟，掉进了釉料缸的碟子。最得意的是一个棕色的烟灰缸，只是其重无比：）WW拿起了瓷器又放下，最后说“怎么都---这么-- 厚呢？“ ！！！！这不是初学嘛，不惜材料，货真价实。

不过我还是十分得意，拿着相机左拍右拍。朋友来玩，我也趁机炫耀一下。“是从日本店里买的吧？”朋友问道，也不知是真的这么想还是故意问的。我全当是前者吧。这星期是最后一次用粘土， 又作了两个碗。

 

Last night, shocking news came through email that a friend had a sudden stroke and was to go through immediate surgery. It sounds really surreal because he's young, my age, and very active in sports. In fact, he fell ill at the basketball court during a game. It was life threatening when he was taken to the OR.

We went to the hospital early in the morning and found him in ICU. He was put on breathing machine, and all kinds of tubes in and out. It's still unbelieveable to see an otherwise very healthy person in a medically dangerous condition like that. We were told by the nurse that the surgery went well and the bleeding was stopped and clog taken out. During the day, angiogram will be performed for further examiniation.

In the basement waiting room, we found his wife and other friends who were sleeping on the couches and chairs through the night. It was awkward as we were sitting around, looking at his wife, thinking what to say. Later the doctors came asking for her signature for the procedure.

The waiting period later got a little easier as people sat around and started chatting, about things outside of this incident, of professors, school, work etc. She also got a bit well-needed distraction. The hard moment came when the nurse asked us to go back to the ICU to see him and hear the results. I accompanied her. He was lying there, more sedated than in the morning, breathing from the tube, IVs on both wrists, blood stain. The nurse explained to us what the result says, and she can't be sure of the exact cause either. His wife wasn't talking, but held his hand. Tears dropped from her face. I held her, not knowing what to say.

Since the test was generally positive, we pursuaded her to go home for some rest before coming back. And we left the hospital too, back to our own business...

Such a fine line it is between life and death, and one may cross it so suddenly.

Last week was somehow a turning point. I started to get the hang of it. This week is even better. I had four pots ready to be glazed. I dipped them in the glaze, and now they have colors. Will wait till next week or later to see how they turn out. yeah!

This week, I made two other pots, one bowl and a vase. I think the difference is I leanred to center the clay much better. So the fundamentals are always the most important. Also, with a few pots made, I feel more relaxed. I am happy to be creative, to try, to relax and to accept the possibility that the pot falls apart when I'm making it. I will just think through what I did wrong, and start with another one. Now, it's getting to be much more fun.

I suppose that's how research should be too. Have a bit fun. Maybe I'm just too tense, want a perfect pot. There is none, at least not yet...

Today I made some progress in the pottery class. I think I'm beginning to get the hang of it now. The instructor showed T and I how to center the clay, which is the most important problem for us. I was able to make two plates. Quite happy. T and I are definitely the slowest learners in the whole class. What we're making today are things that other people were making like two or three weeks ago :) Well, who cares. My goal is to make a nice bowl by the end of the whole series!!

The pot I made in the first class turned out to be too dry to be baked. The instructor said, throw it into the bucket and we'll use the clay again. I didn't want to. So I took it home, and will take a picture to remember my first pot. Without baking, it will have a short life. I don't know what will happen to it, maybe cracks, maybe dissolve with water...

To my first pot!

Yesterday, I went to a presentation given by a recent phd graduate from Stanford who is now quite well known for his comic strips about grad stduent life. It was a very funny talk.

The tiered lectural room was probably 1/3 to 1/2 full. Very good attendance, actually. "How many here are graduate students?" Hands were up everywhere. "How many here are undergrad?" -- Three hands. Hahaha. "How many are faculty?" Everyone looked around. In the back row, there's one brave hand up... Laughters.

The speaker did his phd working on robot. He showed a short video clip of a robot he made, like a mechanical cockcroach. Its eight legs were running like crazy on a moving belt, like running on a treadmill. Then a hand came down to pound the cockcroach. It was a funny home video. Then, he said, "I showed my robot because I think it's what graduate student life is like. You always feel like you keep running and running, but are going nowhere. And, from time to time, there is this professor's hand coming down to hammer you."

It's kind of morbid, but it's very true that for a lot of times grad students feel they work so hard yet can't see the light at the other end of the tunnel.

I think what I liked most about his presentation was the point about GUILT. That's the feeling I experience as a grad student, and see others go through all the time. There is the constant guilt that whatever you are doing, you could be using the time to do research. Like right now, I'm thinking in my head, I should be reading my notes, transcribing my data... It's the byproduct of freedom that most people don't think about or know. For many people, the flexibility of getting up whenever you want, going to office whenever you feel like, working for however long you wish... is the ideal life. As grad students, for the most part, enjoy this unmatchable flexbility, they also shoulder the consequences of it. That is CONSTANT GUILT. It switches us from being monitored and controlled by other people, to being controlled by ourselves. And, if I may say, self discipline is a very scarce quality, and is hard for many people. You can only be watched by others for certain periods during the day, but you can watch yourself for every minute, every second of your life. Consider the power of that  control! And grad students most often fall victim to themselves, to their own mind.

Hm, I didn't expect to write so much about guilt and internalized monitoring. An interesting thought... There're lots of other things to be said about the comic strip, and broadly grad life.

What's this strange creature called graduate student?

I will write more later.

上个星期很让人失望。连续三四次在我正做的兴致勃勃，颇有信心的时候，一不经意上层一大块粘土就突然断了，还飞了出去。。。 害得我只好用残存的小部分粘土继续做。最糟糕的是有一回它连断了两次，这样有大变小连续两次后一个碗变成了酒杯，最后变成了小烛台。惨不忍睹啊！我把它留作纪念。

我总结了一下经验，这礼拜再战。稍稍好一些了，不过不知道怎么把壁拉高起来。所以做了一个矮胖的玩意，同学说是烟灰缸。。。呵，那也不错了。

打字好慢，红薯改烤好了，，，好吃。

Used 2-3 weeks and wrote outlines for two thesis ideas. Each has some issues but feel better, at least it's something. Went to talk to my professor yesterday. She said one idea is interesting, but worries that there isn't enough data. The other idea, you have data, but so what, i.e. why is that interesting? ugh. Can you bring the two ideas together? Hmmm, we brainstormed for a bit. There wasn't any easy solution. "i'm not sure i'm helpful," she said, "I'm stuck." I admire her honesty. But, my two ideas are shot down like that...

I got an email about a talk next week. Someone created a cartoon strip abotu phd, Piled higher and deeper, it's called. Sounds interesting. I will go and take a look. "A recent survey by UC Berkeley found that 95% of all graduate students feel overwhelmed, and over 67% of have felt seriously depressed at some point in their career," says the website. A depressed educated crowd...

Is depression a spreading virus?

Yesterday was my first pottery class. My friend T has been taking it for a month and likes it a lot. Under her prompt, I submitted my application form and check, only to be told that the class was full. But I could try my luck at the first day of class. So I went, and the instructuor told me that there proably wouldn't be any extra spot. But i stuck around. "Looking good," he said to me after only 7 people showed up 5 minutes after the original start time. As he started to tell us about pottery 101, more people were showing up at the door. I was getting upset, but held my hope. In the end, 15 people showed up and 3 were begging for a seat. Since I was the first to come, I got the last wheel, an old, loud, and cranky wheel. Hey, it works... after the banging from the instructor... anyway. I was on my way to my first pottery.

Jamil, the instructor, is an African American, student-looking, dirty baggy jeans, speaking slowly. He taught us how to wedge the clay. The clay felt like a dough. I've never touched it before. And we wedge it somewhat like preparing a dough. Since I used to do that at home, it came natural to me. He put on his music, and taught us to enjoy it, not to tire our arms. One foot in the front, one foot in the back, squeeze the clay rhythmly... Then he began his demo at the wheel. The first thing is to cone the clay up in a cone shape. The wet white clay went up and down in his hands without any resistence. Then using his finger, he pushed the clay wide open and it took a bowl shape already. We were wowed. In a few minutes, the shapeless clay became a vase. Magical....

My own turn, however, was different. Not too bad, i have to say. i tried the few techniques Jamil taught. But when i was working with the bottom, twice I poked through the clay. Then I had to push the clay altogether and start again. Finally, the clay decided to quit me. It no longer stuck to the wheel. Oh well, time to put it aside and start with a new clay.

This time, I was faster and more careful. As I was contemplating how to make a nice shape of the wall, all of a sudden the top part of the clay just flew out. Phew. Must be something i did, but I don't know what. All I knew was i lost the majority of the clay, and I was left with a small bottom part. So i could only work with that small part. With some smoothing and pushing, after a while it started to take the shape of a small round pot. It has uneven edges. i didn't know how to deal with that. But it looked nice becuase of it, i thought. I then carefully smoothed the surface, inside and out. And affter a couple of last steps, my first pot was sitting on the table!! It will be baked later. Yeah!

I'm very excited about the class. Working with one's hands gives a special sense of satisfaction, seeing something taking shape in one's hands... Sometimes the clay seems to have a life of its own, and we need to respect that, take it and shape it according to its will... And I like getting dirty with my hands full of wet white clay, and my pants spotted with it as well.

This is fun!!! I can't wait till the next class. My goal is to make a big bowl and a vase. We will see...

I never thought I would have a blog. But this is my little world now...